It happened in Myrtle Beach, S.C., when CS and GD stopped in local watering hole for a couple of quick ones commemorating the final days of their tour together. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Peach Buzz blog, Collective Soul’s Ed Roland called a local radio station’s morning show today to describe what happened the night before.
Roland told the Q100 Bert Show that a woman in the bar “made a comment to her boyfriend about either my brother [Dean Roland of Collective Soul] or Gavin being a good-looking dude.”
Evidently the boyfriend wasn’t appreciative of his lady friend referring to another guy in the bar as a “good-looking dude” and punched Dean Roland in the face. Mayhem reportedly followed.
Normally after an incident like this, publicists for both acts would swoop in and apply their patented spin techniques to ensure fans that neither band had started the fight. At least, that’s how it used to be done in the days before Twitter.
However, this time members of Collective Soul as well as DeGraw twittered their fans about the fisticuffs.
For instance, Dean Roland tweeted, “First shot I’ve taken to the face.”
DeGraw’s tweets, however, were a little more detailed.
“Me and my crew just got in a 20 man brawl with a group of juiced up [expletive]. I guess they think that just cos I write love songs that I won’t throw down like a man. They were slow and drunk, but that whoopin is gonna hurt worse than their hangovers.”
Although no tickets resulted from the ruckus, Ed Roland told the morning radio show that police officials banned his band from the area for one full year.
Which might cause problems with tonight’s gig when Collective Soul and Gavin DeGraw play the House of Blues in, you guessed it, North Myrtle Beach, a community just up the road from Myrtle Beach.
But Roland wasn’t too concerned.
“It’s not like they’re going to have a Polaroid of Collective Soul at the city limits,” Roland said.
Click here for the entire Atlanta Journal-Constitution / Peach Buzz article.