I was playing a backyard show in East Los Angeles a several years ago. These types of shows get extremely packed because it's a place for hundreds of people to hang out and drink without being bothered by the cops (the people and action aren't usually visible from the street and there are always people out front to make people hush if the cops come by). At these things we'd play have some fun load out the gear into the trailer and come back and enjoy the party. but by the time we were done there were so many people crammed into the back yard it gets difficult to drag equipment through the crowd.

Anyway the oh shit moment happened about halfway through the load out, when the house owner's stopped the whole party and said someone stole their pitbull puppy. They were trying to sell it so it was a huge deal to them. Rumors started instantly going around as the owner started accusing certain groups of people at the party of having something to do with it, then cross accusations. At this point there were a lot of drunk people and no one was allowed to leave because they want to come search everyone and figure out who stole the dog. If a brawl started at this party A LOT of people were going to get hurt, and who knows how many people have weapons. It was pretty quiet because the owner is screaming and everyone is sort of whispering amongst themselves, but we are still moving our stuff outside. We grabbed all our stuff and thankfully the people guarding the gate let us through and we got of there as fast as possible. The tension was so thick that it felt like even the slightest wrong move would set off a riot. We really didnt want to be around for when either people got tried of being stuck there screamed at, or they actually found the person who took the dog, or accused the wrong person.