Smash Mouth lead singer Steve Hartwell threatened a concertgoer and appeared to give a Nazi salute while on stage during a show at an upstate New York festival on Saturday.
The band performed on Saturday at The Big Sip beer festival at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts in Bethel, New York. A viral video from the performance shows Hartwell acting erratically on stage.
According to the video posted on TikTok by user @doesthisfeelgood, Hartwell, still on stage and speaking into the mic, told a fan that he would "kill your whole family, I swear to god," in an explicit rant.
Click here to see the video. Note, it contains explicit language.
The video also shows Hartwell extend his right arm above his head in a gesture that resembled a Nazi salute.
The concert also seemed plagued by sound issues, with the TikTok video showing multiple instances where speakers cut out or Hartwell's microphone had feedback issues.
The video also showed Hartwell standing silently as the rest of the band performed arguably its biggest hit, "All Star."
The TikTok user also claimed that Hartwell was intoxicated. At one point during the video, Hartwell dropped a can while leaning up against a support beam.
The performance was just the latest controversial performance for the '90s punk band. In 2020, Smash Mouth performed at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota despite rising rates of COVID-19 in the state. During his performance, Hartwell yelled, "we're all here together tonight. F--- that COVID s---." The CDC later linked the event to a deadly outbreak of COVID-19 in Minnesota.
Hartwell also made news in 2015 during a performance at the Taste of Fort Collins in Colorado, when attendees began throwing slices of bread on stage. Hartwell delivered an expletive-laden rant before leaving the stage. Organizers of that event made the comment that Hartwell had "made a fool of himself" with his fiery reaction.
