By Pamela Fayerman
Vancouver Sun (Vancouver, B.C.)
November 2, 1993

    Singer Shannon Hoon, who posed naked on the cover of this week's Rolling Stone magazine, then peed in front of a Pacific Coliseum audience, will get a lesson in potty training from a Vancouver judge next month.

    Hoon's antics before a sold-out crowd on Halloween night at the Coliseum are causing an endless stream of headaches for concert promoter Mark Norman. He spent all of Monday apologizing to "rightfully concerned'' parents disgusted that their kids witnessed Hoon performing his last three songs naked and then urinating into the audience.

    As vice-president of Perryscope Productions, which featured Hoon's band, Blind Melon, as a warmup act for Lenny Kravitz, Norman is under fire for Hoon's actions.  "I am doing my best to convince parents and everybody else phoning us that we don't condone what Hoon did. We find it disgusting and we are embarrassed,'' he said.  Surrey father Mike Rolland, whose 17-year old daughter was in the front row at the concert, (but luckily didn't get urinated on), said he's angry that Hoon wasn't hauled off the stage as soon as he stripped off his underwear.

    "I think the management of the Coliseum and the promoters have a responsibility not to allow this type of occurrence to happen,'' he said, adding the band should not be allowed to play in Vancouver again.  Const. Jack Froese, police department media liaison officer, said police purposely waited until after the concert to arrest Hoon because of a fear that any action taken onstage would start a riot.  'There's a mob mentality at these concerts and you don't want to create a bigger problem with fights and riots, so the 12 officers in attendance made a judgment to wait and we think that was a good decision.''  He said he sympathizes with parents who are angry that their children witnessed Hoon's conduct.  Norman said he doesn't know whether Hoon was trying to make some sort of statement to the 13,000 concert-goers or whether he was so drunk and/or stoned that he just didn't know what he was doing.

    When Vancouver police arrested Hoon after the concert, they threw him in the drunk tank cell to sober up for a few hours before charging him with committing an indecent act and public nudity.  Police laid both charges but Froese said it will be up to the Crown counsel to decide whether to proceed with both or with just the indecent-act charge relating to the urination incident.  Froese said police wanted to give Hoon some time to sober up before releasing him so that he would understand the offence he was facing.   "I don't know what he was high on but we lodged him in jail for awhile as is our normal practice for people in this shape''.

    Hoon, who alternates living between Los Angeles and Seattle when he's not performing, will make a first appearance in court Dec. 7. The maximum penalty for each charge is six months in jail and/or a $2,000 fine.  Steve Young, the promotional representative for the EMI (Capital) recording company, which has Blind Melon on its label, said he wouldn't comment on the matter since it is before the courts.  "I'm not having a great day, as you can imagine. Look, stuff happens, as they say. Nothing like this has ever happened before and because of all the legalities involved in all of this, I can't say anything."

    Young did point out that Blind Melon is experiencing tremendous success with the band's first album, having sold 150,000 copies in Canada and well over a million in the U.S.  Norman said the incident in Vancouver might jeopardize the band's future. "Then again, it could help them and that's the sick part. The incident may eventually fade from people's memory or it could take on some sort of hero status thing.''  Asked what he'd do if he was one of the concert-goers who was urinated upon, Norman said: "I'd be furious.''

    Since police were in the audience at the time Hoon stripped and then urinated, they based their arrest on their own observations and didn't need any complainants.  Froese said police blocked the bus from going anywhere after the concert. Hoon climbed out a bus window on to the roof of the bus, where he screamed at police before the other members of his band talked him into getting off the roof.

    Kravitz was on a plane to Europe, where he is continuing his world tour, and was not available for comment Monday.  But Norman said he knows that Kravitz was not pleased by the antics of his opening act.