The UK’s dual city V Festival was held over the past weekend, held in the two cities of Chelmsford and South Staffordshire and featuring a lineup that included the recently reformed Stone Roses and forthcoming Big Day Out headliners, The Killers – on the trail to their new album Battle Born.
But when Festival organisers booked The Killers as a feature for the festival, this is probably not what they had in mind.
Both of V Festival’s venues were struck by tragedy and two singular, unrelated fatalities.
Reports from The Guardian tell of a 22-year-old man that was found not breathing in a tent at the South Staffordshire location. Police said security staff were alerted to the tent at around 1am on Sunday where they discovered one Timothy Brockhurst was found in an unresponsive state.
Emergency paramedics on the scene attempted to give him first aid, but was later pronounced dead.
Chief Inspector Carl Ratcliffe, from Staffordshire police, told press: “We are very saddened by the tragic death of this young man and we are working to establish the full facts and build a picture of his actions in the few hours before his death.”
Ten men have been arrested by Essex Police on suspicion of murder, with officers investigating the death of a 39-year-old discovered at a house opposite Hylands Park, V Festival’s second venue.
NME reports that the victim’s body, which is as-yet unidentified, was found in the back garden of a house where a private party had been held. Essex investigators suspect the victim died after succumbing to head injuries.
The police’s arrested suspects are aged between 23 to 35 and officers are seeking out others who attended the party. A spokesman for the Essex Police Department said: “Detectives from the Kent and Essex serious crime directorate need to speak to everyone who attended what police believe was a private party at the property during the late hours of Saturday and early hours of this morning.”
The news comes on top of what can only be described as a bad year for festival healthy and safety. Since January we’ve seen festival goers being struck by lightning at a German music event, one dead and two injured from ‘legal highs’ at a Scottish festival, a number of stage collapses; from the 20 injured in a stage falling apart at a Swedish festival to the tragic Radiohead stage collapse in Canada.
Then there’s the 26 teenagers hospitalised for poisoning at a Wiz Khalifa concert and the awful wave of stabbings at gigs lately.
From the nine Irish punters who were knifed at a Swedish House Mafia performance, while in New York, an ex-member of hardcore punk act Cro-Mags stabbed and bit his former bandmates backstage; and more recently, a Tenacious D concert in Las Vegas was shut down due to a violent knifing.
