The Day after Cheap Trick blew into town
The stage collapsed beneath Cheap Trick during a concert at the Ottawa Bluesfest. A severe windstorm struck during the power pop group’s set, resulting in the stage to fall apart just after they performed their hit single “I Want You to Want Me.”
No one in the band, crew or audience was seriously hurt, but the accident resulted in several minutes of sustained hysteria at the festival, with many concertgoers running and screaming in panic.
Cheap Trick are “so thankful” to be alive after the sudden collapse of their stage at a festival in Canada. A violent thunderstorm tore through the Ottawa Bluesfest on Sunday night, demolishing the main stage and destroying all of Cheap Trick’s equipment. As the final notes of I Want You To Want Me rang out, “it just started coming down,” recalled manager Dave Frey. “It was like the Titanic or something.”
“It was complete pandemonium,” Frey told Rolling Stone yesterday. From his vantage point behind the drummer, Frey felt the “still and humid” air change “out of nowhere” at around 8.00pm. “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! … The roof fell, 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.”
Luckily for the Bluesfest audience – including Ottawa mayor Jim Watson – the stage fell backwards, toward the backstage, not out into the crowd. “There were thousands of people running,” reported the Globe and Mail’s Jeremy Torobin. “The rain was pounding, pouring down sideways. It was insane.” Most of the Cheap Trick’s gear was either crushed or soaked-through, with other bits and pieces seized by the police and fire departments for their investigation into the collapse. “Everything is gone,” complained Frey. “We’re trying to get gear set up for our show [Tuesday] in Buffalo. Do you know where we can rent a five-neck guitar?”
Despite an initial statement that there were no major injuries on site, at least three people were taken to hospital. The most seriously hurt was Sandy Sanderson, one of Cheap Trick’s lorry drivers, who reportedly suffered injuries to his femur, abdomen, pelvis and leg. .
“We deal with weather every day and you know we don’t automatically call a show because we have weather we see coming in,” explained Bluesfest director Mark Monahan. “If we did that, we wouldn’t be able to run a festival.” Bluesfest cancelled the remainder of Sunday night’s programming, including performances by Joe Satriani, Galactic and Death Cab for Cutie, and are offering refunds.
“It was a miracle no one was killed today when the stage collapsed,” wrote Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard on Twitter. “Gear can be replaced, people can’t.” His bandmate Nick Harmer offered his own take: “Seriously. What. The F—.”
The Ontario ministry of labour is now investigating the collapse of the stage, which Bluesfest rents from an outside firm.