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"Can we stop fighting at gigs?" Pleads MOJO's Stevie Chick

From the audience's perspective at least, Low's set on the main stage of the recent End Of The Road Festival was going fine, the Duluth trio doing what they've been doing for 15 years now: glowering, understated, songs that flared into moments of powerful drama, unexpected menace and stark beauty.

There were a number of signals that not all was right, like when frontman Alan Sparhawk confided that he'd had a "crappy day", and that "everybody I love told me they hate me", but we indulgently overlooked them. Then, in the set's final moments, Sparhawk tore the strings from his guitar and hoisted it from his body, whirling about the stage. Thrill turned to horror, however, when Sparhawk released his guitar in the direction of the audience, the heavy axe hurtling directly at our heads.

My memories of what followed are a little jumbled: the crowd parting in panic to avoid the flung missile; several guys cradling pieces of the broken guitar while a press photographer snapped away. But what I remember most clearly is a sense of anger and disbelief on the part of the crowd, scarcely quelled by the news that no-one had been hurt.

Rock 'n' roll and violence have been entwined since birth, since riots broke out at early screenings of the movie Blackboard Jungle (theme tune: "Rock Around The Clock" by Bill Haley And His Comets). Rock 'n' roll wove its mythos from the rawer side of life, its ancestors bluesmen with a pocket fulla whiskey and a pistol in the other, its stars modern-day desperadoes and outlaws. It played out territorial disputes in bloody squabbles on Brighton Beach, and it sound-tracked murder on the Altamont Speedway.

Violence has gilded the legend of many rock 'n' roll heroes: like Iggy Pop, facing down Hell's Angels with his Stooges, or Henry Rollins, whose first gig fronting hardcore pioneers Black Flag was halted when a PCP-crazed ‘fan' leapt onstage and broke his nose (another audience member clambered up to ‘set' his nose moments later, so Rollins could finish the show).

Rock audiences feed off this violence, and if you don't believe me, go visit the swarming circle-pit of any hardcore or metal gig worth your bruises, where the pogoing and head-banging of yore have long since mutated into a fevered slam-dance. At their best, such pits provide a relatively safe arena for kids to thrash out their frustrations, energised by the music, but often this so-called ‘controlled violence' turns nasty, where the communal grapple cloaks the sly punch, throttle or grope.

The line where rock 'n' roll's violence turns from thrill to ill is muddy. Tawdry shock-rocker GG Allin pushed every envelope during his short lifetime, shitting and pissing onstage, mutilating himself and regularly attacking his audiences. But while his behaviour was uniformly reprehensible, any audience member clumped by his microphone (or, indeed, his effluent) knew what they were in for the moment they purchased their ticket: the violence was real but, within the context of his performance, was as much a part of his ‘art' as his risible songs, a part of the entertainment. The audience were consenting adults, their presence implying consent to such abuse.

When this consent isn't present, or when the violence transcends the ‘frame' of the artistic statement and becomes an expression of real anger or spite, is when things go wrong, leaving the audience--or, sometimes, the artist--like a sadomasochist who's forgotten the safe-word. Whatever lumps Nick Cave took while tussling with audiences at early Birthday Party shows were doubtless part of the chaotic give-and-take of their live experience. When Noel Gallagher is left needing medical attention after being tackled by a stage-invader, however, things take a darker and more disturbing turn. There is a danger, as the YouTube footage of gig aggro accrues, making small-screen stars of knuckleheads onstage and off, and that the rock show smackdown will become further fetishized. As Finnish rockers The Rasmus discovered in 2004--after leaving the Reading Festival stage three minutes into their set when a band-member was struck in the face by a battery packed in mud, thrown by an audience member--it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

There are a number of reasons why Sparhawk's reckless actions that Saturday evening were so shocking, not least that the temperate Mormon frontman, a domesticated husband and father, is perhaps the last chap in the world you'd expect to behave like a rock 'n' roll cock. His documented struggles with depression should also be entered in mitigation, but that's an explanation, not an excuse. It's only through the quick reflexes of the audience that Sparhawk's not facing GBH charges, or worse.

In the end, of course, nobody got hurt, and at least one Low fan got to take home a one-of-a-kind memento from a show that was unforgettable, for mostly the wrong reasons. The group has yet to issue a statement in response to Saturday's events; indeed, their website instead lists a series of shows booked for rest of the year, across America, Europe and the UK. It's a safe bet, however, that few in the audience at End Of The Road that night will have the stomach for another night like Saturday, and its upsetting denouement.

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