Staind frontman Aaron Lewis played an acoustic gig last night (February 2nd) in Pharr, TX at the Pharr Event Center – but wasn't able to get through his entire set. Pharr is a border city with Mexico and 90% of the population is Latino.
Lewis was trying to perform an acoustic song without the use of amplification but the crowd was being too rowdy. Based on the video footage, it did seem like the crowd was as quiet as they were going to be. At that point, The Monitor reports a fan shouted to Aaron "tell them in Spanish" before another shouted “In español.” Lewis chose to respond by saying “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to speak Spanish. I’m American.”
The crowd reaction was mixed – like when a pro wrestler insults a local sports team. Since people were not quieting down, Lewis decided to end the set early. It should be noted that the United States has no official language, although, obviously English is the most commonly used language in the country.
Here is video footage from The Monitor:
Rock Feed has two different angles of the moment in question:
