Posted on 07/18/2011 12:23:23 PM PDT by a fool in paradise
Less than a day after surviving a stage collapse at the Ottawa Bluesfest in Ontario, Canada, the members of Cheap Trick and their manager Dave Frey are feeling glad to be alive. "We are so thankful," Frey tells Rolling Stone.
According to Frey, the sudden windstorm that brought down the main stage at the festival came as a surprise. "They said that we should be looking out for a storm but it wasn't really that apparent," he says. "I was actually on stage behind the drummer and I was taking a few pictures right before it happened. The air was still and it was humid and then out of nowhere, this wind hit that was just huge. The local news sources are saying 96 miles per hour, another one said like a hundred and something."
"It just blew everything back, cymbals are flying and everything. And we're just like 'get off the stage!' and then I heard the rivets in the truss just starting to pop. BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! It was like the Titanic or something, and it just started coming down, the roof fell," he recalls. "It hit our truck, which was parked behind the stage and that kept it about five feet off of the deck, and that gave us room to run. We were running as fast as we could."
As can be seen in some photos and footage from the scene, the audience was in a state of panic. "It was complete pandemonium," says Frey. "It's so unbelievable that with everything that happened, with the crowd, tents flying away and debris flying, with everything going on, there were less than a dozen people at the hospital with mostly minor injuries."
Though Frey and the members of Cheap Trick emerged from the collapse more or less unscathed, their truck driver sustained an injury to his abdomen and a cracked femur, and they lost all of their equipment. "Everything is gone. The gear is crushed and it's soaked, and it's part of an investigation with the police department, the fire department and the Ministry of Labor here," Frey says. "We're trying to get gear set up for our show tomorrow in Buffalo. Do you know where we can rent a five-neck guitar?"
I take it that you're under 40 years old.
They played multiple sell out nights of $65+ seats here in Milwaukee earlier this year.
Nothing cheap about them.
;-)
(far out man...)
I like that song.......
Saw Cheap Trick play in the high school gym in bemidji mm in 1982. I think they were down on their luck at the time but put on a great show.
LOL - Best Post Award!
I want YOU to want ME...(how do you say that in Japanese?)
Wow. That IS a cheap trick.
Don’t take the brown acid.
Ask Max Yasgur.
I can imagine. Started listening to them years ago and didn't realize they were still around, much less playing concert venues.
Robin Zander has posted video footage he shot immediately afterwards...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCwNKox0uXE
I was surprised that he didn’t know the drivers name.
No it's not, I drove it last weekend on my way OUT of the state! ;-)
Honest!
Hopefully Rick Nielson had left his very impressive and valuable collection of vintage electric guitars at home.
That’s an August thing.
LOL! I like the way you think. ;)
(A) in the shock of the immediate aftermath, it’s difficult to bring up all info
(B) he may have been referring to him at the driver since that might be how others would also know him.
They posted an update today on his condition.
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