8 Dead in Denmark Pearl Jam Concert
Sheldon Huggins
By JAN M. OLSEN, Associated Press Writer
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Fans at an outdoor rock concert packed closer and
closer to the stage where Pearl Jam was playing, ending in a crush that
killed eight people and injured three more.
The grounds at the annual Roskilde festival were muddy from an all-day rain
Friday. The victims, all men, slipped or fell in front of the stage and were
trampled to death, police said.
The crush occurred shortly before midnight, as Pearl Jam was playing on the
main stage before a crowd of about 50,000 people.
``Things were really great and we wanted to move up,'' festival-goer Lasse
Aagaard told the TV2 channel Saturday morning.
``The pressure from behind was too great,'' added Holger Hougaard, another
fan who was up front. The band asked the crowd to move back, and halted the
performance when that didn't happen.
``This is so painful. I think we are all waiting for someone to wake us and
say it was just a horrible nightmare,'' Pearl Jam said in a statement
Saturday. ``There are absolutely no words to express our anguish in regard
to the parents and loved ones of those precious lives that were lost.''
One victim was identified as a 17-year-old Dane, but police declined to
release his name pending identification of relatives, said Mogens Soerensen
of the Roskilde police.
``Everybody at the festival is deeply concerned and wish to express their
sympathy to the relatives,'' festival spokesman Leif Skov said.
After the stampede, the next main-stage show by the British band The Cure
was canceled in ``respect for the dead,'' Skov said. The deaths were
announced over loudspeakers and some concert-goers began crying and others
lit candles, Danish media reported.
``The festival is expected to continue'' to its Sunday conclusion, Skov
said, ``with the deepest respect for the perished. Life is stronger than
death.''
The festival featured 170 performers including Lou Reed, Willie Nelson, Iron
Maiden and the Pet Shop Boys.
The Roskilde festival, first held in 1971, was inspired by the 1969
Woodstock Festival in upstate New York. It is held annually on a farm in
Roskilde, 25 miles west of the capital, Copenhagen.
The event, which in recent years has appeared on MTV, attracts visitors from
most of northern Europe.
Last year, 52 people were killed after a rock concert in Minsk, Belarus,
when a hailstorm hit and hundreds of fans rushed for a nearby subway
station. In 1979, 11 people were trampled to death in Cincinnati as they
rushed for choice seats before the start of a concert by the British rock
band The Who.
Wovrok117
Sure they were playing, but it was a festival. It's a bit of a diservice to
Stone, Mike, Jeff, and Matt that everyone is going to think that this was a
concert they organized for Pearl Jam fans, when it was just very bad luck that
the circumstances put all those fans in that position at the time of their
performance. I wonder if the Roskilde organizers are trying to influence the
media on how they cover it and what names they should attach to the tragedy.
Tinka
> I wonder if the Roskilde organizers are trying to influence the
> media on how they cover it and what names they should attach to the tragedy.
Nope, as previously posted here - the Roskilde Organisers take on full moral
responsibility. I think the "PJ concert" is a case of lazy journalists trying to
get a good sensationalist angle on matters. What will sell more papers? An unknown
Danish music-festival tragedy or a tragedy directly linked with an internationally
well-known American rock band?
--
Tinka
-------
writing letters to my frenz..
telling them all about split ends..
(p.judd, 1971)
baZtard
It could have happened to any band!
Tinka <mul...@NOSPAMscandis-kol.dk> skrev i
meldingsnyheter:3960B893...@NOSPAMscandis-kol.dk...
Keunen
wrote:
>Well, it was a Pearl Jam concert, pretty obious too. But does that matter?
>It could have happened to any band!
We are fairly convinced that it would not hae mattered if there was
another popular band up.....we think the same thing would've happened
if Live would've been playing.....or maybe not.......it just sucks
that it had to happen to THIS band! They do not deserve this.....
After three days of talking almost non-stop I can finally step back
and look at what happened from a distance.....it doesn't make things
better altogether, but slowly things are improving.....
Stella :)
>Tinka <mul...@NOSPAMscandis-kol.dk> skrev i
>meldingsnyheter:3960B893...@NOSPAMscandis-kol.dk...
>> Wovrok117 wrote:
>>
>> > I wonder if the Roskilde organizers are trying to influence the
>> > media on how they cover it and what names they should attach to the
>tragedy.
>>
>> Nope, as previously posted here - the Roskilde Organisers take on full
>moral
>> responsibility. I think the "PJ concert" is a case of lazy journalists
>trying to
>> get a good sensationalist angle on matters. What will sell more papers? An
>unknown
>> Danish music-festival tragedy or a tragedy directly linked with an
>internationally
>> well-known American rock band?
>>
>> --
>> Tinka
>>
>> -------
>> writing letters to my frenz..
>> telling them all about split ends..
>> (p.judd, 1971)
>>
>>
>
>
--
Check out some of the best bands in the world!!
Juice................."http://www.aa.net/~slaglip"
Nuclear Rabbit........"http://www.nuclearrabbit.com"
Static-X.............."http://www.static-x.com"
Papa Roach............"http://www.paparoach.com"
Seeking Homer........."http://www.seekinghomer.com"
Rai
> we think the same thing would've happened if Live would've been playing.....or
> maybe not.......it just sucks that it had to happen to THIS band! They do not
> deserve this.....
No one "deserves" this. I can't think of one band that could have been playing
for which I would say "Boy, I guess that's fitting."
--
-Rai
"I never end my messages with a damn quote."
Keunen
>Keunen wrote:
>
>> we think the same thing would've happened if Live would've been playing.....or
>> maybe not.......it just sucks that it had to happen to THIS band! They do not
>> deserve this.....
>
>No one "deserves" this. I can't think of one band that could have been playing
>for which I would say "Boy, I guess that's fitting."
You're right there...I don't think anyone deserves it....bad choice of
words there I suspect....
Stella