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?"
PING
“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?”
The real news here is that Cheap Trick is still getting festival bookings.
The New York State Thruway is closed man. :-)
long time ago, I read that there was a drummer paralyzed by falling stage rigging...I think he was backing Paul Simon, but can’t say for sure. Was it in Central Park?
one of my favorite rock guitarists. I like is his style all - musical and stage.
Don’t be Cruel man
Don’t be Cruel man
-PJ
Mine too,
If I recall correctly, Cheap Trick is the “touringest” band ever. I’m pretty sure I read that they’ve performed more ‘live’ shows than any other band in the history of rock-n-roll.
read something like that, too. remember thinking, “gawd but they work hard.”
Well, Geritol isn't cheap.
I had a chance encounter with him in a bar at O'Hare a number of years ago. He's also a really nice guy off stage.
I saw them in Petaluma back in 2007, and then they played a benefit at our convention a couple of years later. They put on a great show.
The first rock-n-roll concert I ever attended was a Cheap Trick show in 1978.
Why is it closed?
I’ll never forget walking into a bar in August 1974 in Madison Wisconsin and they were playing (for free). I remember
thinking to myself - “Hey these guys really suck”. I remember the keyboard dude playing keyboards on the back of some other band member and thinking “wow - that’s lame”. Flash forward a few years and it turns out they’re rock and roll superstars. But my initial assessment still stands :)
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