U.S. band barred from Russian festival after bass player shoves flag in pants

MOSCOW — The rock group Bloodhound Gang was kicked out of a Russian music festival and pelted with eggs after videos emerged of its bass player shoving a Russian flag down his pants at a recent concert in Ukraine. Russian prosecutors are even considering whether to open a criminal case in the matter, which comes amid a rise in U.S.-Russian tensions.

Videos of Wednesday’s concert in the Ukrainian city of Odesa show bass player Jared Hasselhoff pushing the Russian white, blue and red flag down the front of his pants and pulling it out the back. He then shouted to the audience: “Don’t tell Putin,” a reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The incident outraged the Russian government. Maria Minina, a spokeswoman for the weeklong Kubana festival in southern Russia, said Saturday that the band’s headlining performance the previous evening had been cancelled because of its treatment of the flag.

The American band is known for its sexually explicit songs, including The Bad Touch, with its unforgettable lyrics: “You and me, baby, ain’t nothin’ but mammals, so let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.”

Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky tweeted Friday night that he had spoken with officials in the southern Krasnodar region, known as Kuban. “Bloodhound Gang is packing its bags,” he said in the Twitter post. “These idiots will not perform in Kuban.”

Hasselhoff was questioned Saturday by police, according to the Russian Interior Ministry, which said prosecutors have been asked to decide if the musician could be charged with defaming the Russian flag.

The bass player apologized late Friday at a news conference held at the music festival in the city of Anapa, the local Yuga.ru news portal reported. He was quoted saying meant no offence and explaining it was a tradition for everything thrown from the stage first to be passed through his pants. Hasselhoff said he decided to throw the flag because some fans seemed disturbed to see it hanging on the stage.

As the Bloodhound Gang members were driving to the airport, activists from a pro-Kremlin youth group threw eggs and tomatoes at their vehicle.