This story comes courtesy of Rob Gill of the Detroit Hip Hop Coalition

It was a sad night for concert go-ers last Friday night at Detroit's St. Andrews Hall. The all-ages crowd of about one thousand was hyped to see former House of Pain front man Everlast perform tracks from his new album, Eat At Whitey's, only to be disappointed when the show was canceled after only 5 songs. About halfway through Everlast's performance, 10 unidentified men wearing D-12 shirts rushed into the building, pushed their way through the crowd and went straight to the stage. The men proceeded to beat upseveral of Everlast's band members and sent three people to the hospital.The venue's management states that Everlast was able to sneak away unharmed. The men were gone by the time police arrived and Detroit Police Sgt. Ricardo Moore confirmed that no arrests were made following the event. When asked about the situation he had this to say, "I guess you could say trash talking took place and some people in crowd didn't like it."

In case you are unfamiliar with the events leading up to the concert brawl, Everlast and Eminem have been "dissing" each other in interviews and on record for almost a year now. In a verse on the Dilated Peoples' "Ear Drums Pop", Everlast claims that he "he'll buck a .380 on those that act shady" in reference to Eminem, also known as Slim Shady. Eminem then recorded the songs "I Remember" and "Quitter" featuring his crew the Dirty Dozen to further the battle between himself and Everlast. In the song "Quitter", Eminem tells his fans "If you ever see Everlast, whoop his ass. Hit him with sticks, bricks, rocks, throw sh-t at him. Kick him, spit on him, treat him like a ho". Everlast also recorded the track "Whitey's Revenge" (dedicated to Eminem's mother) in which he makes comments about Eminem's wife and daughter and tells him, "You better check your kid for your dna"and "You wanna talk some sh-t money, come and talk it with the hands".

Everlast was very vocal Friday night about his attitude towards Eminem and everyone else he feels is trying "to make money off of my music". He had things to say about the popular potato chip company Pringles, who is currently running commercials using House of Pain track "Jump Around". "Limp Bizkit used my blueprint. I did that sh-t back in '92. F-ck them. Let them make all the money they want," he told the crowd. He then called Smash Mouth a bunch of "faggots" for covering "Jump Around" in concert, but then took back the remark saying he didn't want to offend homosexuals. Everlast continued his rant, laying into Eminem and D-12. "D-12 is 6 people not a dozen, you f-cking morons," Everlast said. "The mike is open if there's someone from Eminem's camp who is here." After no one took him up on the offer he said, "Didn't think so," and then began to perform his diss to Eminem "Whitey's Revenge". At this moment, someone in the crowd apparently called in the goon squad as the men stormed into the concert hall. A scuffle then ensued between the three of the men and St. Andrew's Hall security, which was unusually tight for the show. One of the men made his way to the stage, grabbed the microphone and yelled, "Are you going to let this motherf-cker come to Detroit and disrespect Eminem?" As he began to speak again, the power to the stage was cut. Enraged, the man grabbed the mike stand and began swinging it, as a chair was thrown from the upper balcony.Fans then threw bottles and rushed out of the venue as members of the St.Andrew's security staff lay bloody on the stage.

One frightened Everlast fan stated "I was in the front row center when this happened. Some girls around me started yelling, "F-ck Eminem" so some people up on stage started throwing beer bottles and chairs at us. One guy two feet away from me got cut with some of the glass." Another fan claims he was struck in the head with a chair thrown by one of the goons. "I saw one of the guys hit a security guard and start throwing things like the mic stand and chairs. I was waiting inside to see if anything else happened and one of the security guards had this huge gash on the side of his head," said an 18 year old concert go-er. She added, "After the scene on Friday I lost all respect for Eminem. People could have been hurt very badly Friday night and we all got basically scammed out of something we paid money for. It's not fair. I just feel if Eminem is supposed to be representing Detroit he made us look bad and made a complete fool out of himself." Another fan at the concert, Jennifer Balog told me that she is embarrassed and outraged that these artists allowed this "beef" to escalate to violence "This thing should have remained a lyrical battle, not a violent one. It's one thing to talk about things, say this or that, but to have had this happen it is frightening. I was glad to see that Everlast was willing to stand his ground, willing to express the way he feels in Eminem's hometown."

Several of the men were wearing D-12 hats and T-shirts, but none of them were members of the group as Detroit mainstream media and the Associated Press reported Saturday. Friday night Eminem and his group D-12 were at the Hamburg Sportshalle in Hamburg, Germany for the opening night of his European tour. When asked about the incident, he denied any involvement.

Davey D adds this to Rob Gills report: I got a letter from Truly OdD who is Everlast's DJ..

the "associated press" has it all wrong. (in requards to the everlast/eminem incident)

--nobody jumped on stage (people got on only after the stage was cleared)
--it wasn't member of the crowd (no fans)--it was guys that came in a group
of 15-20 and bullied past the door and caused the encounter with security
(security were the people who were hurt and taken to the hospital...props
goes to security
--no members of the Everlast camp were involved in any encounter.

Truly OdD (everlast's dj)

We also got reports from other industry sources close to the scene who noted that the group that attacked Everlast has a history of doing this...

That brawl was planned!!!!!! The crew who did it went with the intentions of beating Everlast's ass. It was all planned. They were gonna rush the stage if Everlast said something or not. This is the same crew that beat up Trick Daddy last year. Don't know if ya heard this, but Trick Daddy got a proper beat down from this crew last year. These guys are about 80 deep and always roll like that. So, that's the story in a nut.

Congratulations to Big Boi of the group Outkast. Last week he became a proud father when his girlfriend gave birth. As a result the group which had been touring in Europe with Eminem left the tour for the occassion. There are plans to get them back for the last leg of the tour.. In the meantime, Outkast is also gearing up for their domestic tour which will include felow ATL rapper Ludacris. That is scheduled to kick off in at the end of the month in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.