Rhino-Lad

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Illustration of Rhino-Lad by Alec Longstreth
Illustration by Andrew Rae

The Rhino-Lad Incident occurred during a concert at The Flood Zone in Richmond, VA that Weezer performed on January 13, 1997. A fan rushed the stage, interrupting the show and damaging some of the band's equipment.

Overview

Karl Koch has recounted this story a handful of times, including in a "Historical Event" post on the band's Facebook in January of 2014:


Karlifyhead.png
A giant sized kid rushed the stage as the band were playing "Surf Wax America" in the encore. He looked young - but he was nearly 6' tall and built like a football player, clearly both "big boned", strong, AND rather overweight. He just sort of went mad, I guess the weezer music drove him to go crazy. So anyway I try to grab him to push him back off stage, but he was like a dump truck, I could not steer him at all - I grabbed on to him and he literally dragged me across the entire stage like I weighed nothing! He then proceeded to crash into matt's and Rivers' (huge heavy and tall) amps, totally knocking them over like they were made of paper, and of course stopping the show. He was all flailing about and howling, still pushing stuff over even as I lay on top of him trying to stop him! We had security drag him off to a back room as we were PISSED. Matt's rare and valuable Orange amp was totally broken, not to mention the disruption and other damage.

So we get things functioning and the band finishes the set as best they can on busted equipment, cutting out the last song or two. SO it turns out, this kid is all of 12 years old!!! He's back in the room all blubbering and crying with a squeaky little kids voice, saying he was sorry over and over again, just wailing! What the hell? We didn’t have the heart to file a charge or anything, we just sent him home. Bizarre? Yes. We named him Rhino-Lad.
- Karl Koch, Facebook post, January 13, 2014


An extended recounting of the event by Koch was included in Weezine Issue 17: Tales of Weezer, released in 2021.

See also