Clearing the air.
Over the weekend, Dylan Marlowe went viral after being escorted out of a festival where he was performing. Marlowe performed at Country Jam USA in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The lineup on Saturday featured Tigirlily Gold and Marlowe, followed by Craig Morgan and Jake Owen, before Sam Hunt brought it home as the festival headliner.
After Marlowe’s set, he left the stage and headed to the front of house, the tent or structure where the sound and lighting consoles are positioned for the event. Marlowe and his friend thought that they were perfectly placed, staying out of everyone’s way, and had a prime viewing location for Jake Owens’ set.
Wrong.
While they were in the front of house structure, a security guard told the boys that they were not allowed to be there. In the since-deleted social media video, it’s unclear what happened, but it showed the end result of a security guard holding him by the shirt and leading him through the crowd to exit the festival.
While it’s humbling to get escorted out of a place, no matter who you are, the moment does have some comedic relief when Jake Owen, who was on stage performing his song “On The Boat Again,” stops and says, “There’s Dylan Marlowe!” as the opener throws up his hands.
@dylanmarlowefan this is so crazy 😭😂 @Dylan Marlowe #dylanmarlowe #dylanmarlowemusic #country #countrymusic ♬ original sound – Dylan Marlowe
Yesterday, July 20th, after sleeping on it, Marlowe took to social media to shed some light on the situation and what led to him getting escorted out of the festival.
“I just want to hop on here and kinda clear the air a little bit of what I posted yesterday.
A) I took the video down after sleeping on it and watching church this morning. I just decided that it wasn’t fair for that festival to have this video blowing up about their festival when it was really just one bad apple in the whole thing.”
Marlowe explains that he thought the crowd was wonderful and everything leading up to this moment was great, but he was very frustrated in the moment, which led him to share footage of being escorted out of the festival.
“I posted it from a place of frustration yesterday. I was pretty angry when I got backstage, and it wasn’t from, or at least internally, I don’t think it was from a pride or ego standpoint. Like I don’t expect this dude, or I don’t expect anybody to ever know who I am. That’s not it at all. I’m not saying I’m better, I’m just the same as everyone watching this video. I’m just a person that does this for a living. I think what frustrated me was that we had the All-Access credentials on and still got kicked out.”
He then gives some backstory to how this all unfolded. Marlowe and his buddy, Dave, were watching Jake Owen’s set from the top of a front-of-house tower. The two men had been there, trying to stay out of the way, for about 10 minutes when they were approached by security.
“This dude comes up and says we can’t be there. It started off very politely….
We were like, ‘Hey. We have All Access wristbands given to our tour manager for us to wear to be anywhere we want to be. To be able to watch at the front of house, or to be able to go anywhere outside of the gate. That’s what we were told, or to use our artist credentials. We had those as well. So we had two different credentials.
We’re like, ‘Hey. We have these. We’re good.’ He was like, ‘No. I don’t care. So and so said you can’t be up here.’ So we kind of went back and forth trying to explain to him that we just played and we were trying to watch Jake’s set, stay out of the way. I asked him where else we could go to stay out of the way, and he kept saying, ‘The pit.'”
Marlowe then says that he’s usually happy to go into the pit, but given that he had just walked off the stage and was wearing the same clothes that he performed in, he felt like fans might have recognized him in the crowd, and he did not want to cause a scene during Jake Owens set.
“I also won’t lie and say I wasn’t kind of rude back to the guy, because I’m not going to paint it like I was this perfectly great dude who wasn’t rude back to him after he was rude to me. So, definitely not saying I was perfect by any means.
We walk downstairs to where this guy continues to say, ‘Hey, you got to get the F out of here. You gotta get the F outta here. You’re not allowed to be down here either. We had these passes, and we knew we were allowed to be there. These cops came up and I was like, ‘Oh God.’ So we talk to these cops and we’re like, ‘Hey guys. We had these passes. Not sure what the confusion is because we were told these are “All Access” passes. We’re just trying to watch the set,’ to which the cops responded, ‘This security is our boss and he’s telling us to get ya’ll out of here.’
After that, there were definitely a few heated words exchanged with that guy. Nothing like crazy, crazy, but I feel like he was being rude to me. And I was rude back to him, and I shouldn’t have been, so I definitely feel bad about that.”
Marlowe ended his video by noting that he has no hard feelings toward the situation and that he has moved on.
“Just kind of wanted to clear things up. That’s kind of when he grabbed me by my shirt and yanked me out. I just wanted to clear the air a little bit. Also, say to the festival, there are no hard feelings; we had a great time. And to that dude- I forgive you. That’s pretty much all I have to say…”
Respect for acknowledging his part in the situation and for clearing everything up.
To look at the situation, glass-half-full, at least this festival’s security was on top of it, making sure the concertgoers were safe. Dylan Marlowe is a very dangerous opening act…
@dylanmarlowemusic♬ original sound – Dylan Marlowe
