WINNIPEG, MB
Elbert Unrau, 58, of the Steinbach area nearly started a riot at the James Taylor concert on Friday by singing along loudly with every song. All 7,000 people in attendance at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg simultaneously turned around in their seats and told the Mennonite man, attending his first ever concert, to shut his trap.
“I didn’t know. I’m used to how it works in church,” said Unrau. “When the music plays, you sing along…with gusto.”
Unrau has reportedly been a James Taylor fan ever since the mid 70s, when he surreptitiously listened to “You’ve Got a Friend” while his parents were in the barn milking the cows.
“Man, that guy from Steinbach was annoying,” commented concert-goer Brian Wright. “I was right in the middle of listening to the smooth soft rock stylings of James Taylor, when I hear this out-of-tune screeching from three rows behind me. Thanks for ruining ‘Fire and Rain,’ Steinbach guy!”
At one point Mr. Taylor stopped in the middle of “How Sweet It Is” to ask security to escort the bothersome Mennonite out of the building.
“All I’m trying to do is entertain people in as quiet and low-key a manner as possible,” explained Taylor, “and if I’ve got some guy in the nose-bleed seats singing along at the top of his lungs, well, he’s gotta go.”
Unrau is now being hailed as the “most badass” man in Steinbach for being thrown out of a James Taylor concert.
(Photo credit: WEBN-TV/CC)