blink-182 drummer Travis Barker has joined Shaq amongst the growing ranks of celebrity fans of Sydney hardcore band SPEED. The drummer who is currently playing to sold-out arenas down under alongside his blink-182 bandmates was photographed wearing a SPEED shirt while taking a walk at Bondi Beach in Sydney with wife Kourtney Kardashian.
The photo was featured on the Instagram feed of Complex Australia and has been met with a flurry of engagement from fellow musicians and fans of the band alike, all hyped on the Sydney/Euroa hardcore group's latest brush with fame.
The drummer had reportedly met the Knotfest Australia band the day before the photo was taken and had become rather quickly enamoured with them. The photo of Barker follows the band themselves sharing a backstage photo with Travis from a Sydney blink-182 show the night before, as per The Music that post drew the love, support and jealousy of some fellow musicians with Polaris drummer Daniel Furnari replying, “Fucking iconic (I am jealous forever)”, and Hellions drummer Anthony Caruso added, “So sick, I would have spewed”.
GANG CALLED BLINK182 @travisbarker pic.twitter.com/o6JE4KzvrK
— D (@maneworld1) February 16, 2024
In 2022 basketball Hall Of Famer, TV personality, businessman and general pop-cultural force of nature Shaq was one of the hundreds of thousands of people to lose their minds at footage of the mosh from SPEED's Sound and Fury festival set in Los Angeles.
The footage went viral after former NBA player turned conservative Christian media personality Royce White posted a tweet lambasting the crowd for their behaviour captioning the footage with the words And I’m the one with a Mental Illness? We are in a spiritual crisis. What in the false catharsis is this? Vegan coke heads getting right up on the edge of physical confrontation to deal with their unresolved despair and angst — Only faith in God can do that. Gloves Off!"
With over 1000 'quote tweets' and nearly 250k views, White's tweet unintentionally caused the already trending footage to go viral, resulting in Instagram viral clips posting account viralclipz sharing the footage and asking "Who's going to this concert?". The post from viralclipz prompted 'The Big Aristotle', Shaquille O'Neal himself to reply with "me". The band reportedly met Shaq when he visited recently.
Another notable fan of the band is Comeback Kid vocalist Andrew Neufeld who made mention of the band in our interview with him stating "I’m buzzing on SPEED at the moment too!". The rest of the hardcore scene seems to be in agreeance with the band's profile continuing to boom following the release of their EP Gang Called Speed.
SPEED will also lend some fast-paced punk to proceedings on the 2024 edition of Knotfest Australia appearing on the stacked lineup featuring Pantera, Disturbed, Lamb of God, Halestorm, The Hu, Asking Alexandria, Wage War, Escape the Fate, Thy Art Is Murder, Skindred, Windwaker, Brand of Sacrifice and King Parrot.
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