Throwback Thursday: When Avril Lavigne's Fans Nearly Broke Wukesong Arena

Throwback Thursday takes a look back into Beijing's past, using our nine-year-strong blog archives as the source for a glance at the weird and wonderful of yesteryear.

It’s been nearly nine years now since Avril Lavigne became the first performer to give the Wukesong Stadium a workout as a live music venue. Despite having toured through China just two years prior, the massive arena could barely hold all her devoted fans, and apparently couldn’t control them.

According to reports, the Olympic basketball venue failed to contain the fervor when Lavigne kicked off the performance with her popular single “Girlfriend,” when audiences responded by rushing the stage. The crowd apparently swelled into a sort of collective Hulk in a beautiful display of the strength of the proletariat, reportedly bending and dislocating the metal barriers put in place to protect the VIP area.

Wukesong Arena, fresh off its Olympic debut, had to iron out some issues during their inaugural concert, pausing the performance and turning on the arena lights for a full eight minutes while the overjoyed horde was sent back to their respective seats and order was restored.

Reports suggested that the crowd control problems stemmed from more than just excitable fans but were also exacerbated by the poor layout of the venue. The crowd simply filled a large amount of empty space at the center of the stadium, where a weak security presence failed to exert control.

You can take a look at a video of the chaotic scenes here.

Perhaps the madness was fueled by China’s most-beloved nu metal outfit Linkin Park having just that day canceled their much-anticipated China tour. The late Chester Bennington was reportedly diagnosed with a back injury shortly before their tour dates in Shanghai – the proceeds of which were to go to disaster relief efforts in Sichuan following the tragic earthquake that year – and ordered to rest.

Perhaps it was that missed opportunity that drove the masses to get as close to their "sk8rboi" pop princess while they could. More likely, though, it was merely a result of Wukesong having not yet quite come into its own as western Beijing's jumbo-tronned concert arena, which nowadays successfully hosts the likes of Ariana Grande and Chris Brown with few hiccups.

Images: enjoy.eastday.com.cn, enorth.com.cn