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Transcript

The Who Pt 2: A Crowd Crush, a Death Trap, and a Tragedy in Cincinnati · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a
0:18
Speaker 1: story about rock and roll and a rock and roll
0:21
Speaker 1: tragedy about eleven rock and roll fans who died too
0:25
Speaker 1: young in a rock and roll band who somehow is
0:29
Speaker 1: still alive. It's a story about the Who. Our second
0:34
Speaker 1: story about the Who, actually a band who made great music.
0:39
Speaker 1: Unlike that music at the top of the show that
0:42
Speaker 1: wasn't great music. That was a preset loop for my
0:45
Speaker 1: melotron called Eminence Blunt MK two. I played you that
0:51
Speaker 1: loop because I can't afford the rights to No More Tears,
0:54
Speaker 1: Enough Is Enough by Barbara Streisan and Donna Summer. And
0:59
Speaker 1: why would I play that specific slice of your Mom's cheese?
1:03
Speaker 1: Could I afford it? Because that was the number one
1:07
Speaker 1: song in America on December third, nineteen seventy nine, And
1:12
Speaker 1: that was the day that a crowd crush outside the
1:14
Speaker 1: Riverfront Colisseum before a concert by The Who killed eleven
1:18
Speaker 1: people at the time the deadliest rock and roll show
1:22
Speaker 1: in history. On this episode, a crowd crush, asphyxiation, eleven dead, Cincinnati,
1:30
Speaker 1: the Riverfront Colisseum and the Who. I'm Jake Brennan and
1:36
Speaker 1: this is disgraceland. Rock and roll is more than music.
2:07
Speaker 1: You know this. Pete Townsend knows this. Pete Townsend, the guitarist,
2:12
Speaker 1: sometimes singer and chief songwriter for The Who, once described
2:17
Speaker 1: rock and roll as one part music and one part
2:20
Speaker 1: quote the celebration of energy, losing yourself and getting high
2:25
Speaker 1: un quote. The getting high part doesn't necessarily mean illegal drugs,
2:31
Speaker 1: though many who have performed and or listened to rock
2:33
Speaker 1: and roll course over the years have done so while
2:36
Speaker 1: on one substance or another. Getting high was scraping the
2:40
Speaker 1: strings of your rickenbacker on the mic stand and then
2:43
Speaker 1: thrusting the guitarist headstock through the low ceiling above you,
2:47
Speaker 1: as Pete Townsend did in nineteen sixty four inside a
2:51
Speaker 1: West London club. Getting high was smashing the shit out
2:55
Speaker 1: of your cherry sunburst gives them less Paul, or your
2:57
Speaker 1: gold top gives them less Paull or your sg or
3:00
Speaker 1: he gives a thunderbird, which Pete did over and over
3:03
Speaker 1: again at WHO shows throughout the nineteen seventies. That was
3:08
Speaker 1: getting high, That was losing yourself, and that was a
3:13
Speaker 1: rock and roll. Rock and roll was violence and euphoria wrapped.
3:18
Speaker 2: Into one, and it had a beat you could dance to,
3:22
Speaker 2: and no one on the planet was a better example
3:25
Speaker 2: of that violent, euphoric hi than Pete's band me the
3:28
Speaker 2: drummer Keith Moon, a wild man on and off the
3:32
Speaker 2: stage who assaulted his drum set with equal vigor and
3:36
Speaker 2: abandon as Pete Townsend assaulted his guitars.
3:41
Speaker 1: But this was January nineteen seventy nine and Keith Moon
3:45
Speaker 1: was dead. Pete Townsend assumed it was a swift and
3:49
Speaker 1: painless way to go. So many prescription sedatives were found
3:53
Speaker 1: in Mooney's stomach that twenty six of them were still undissolved.
3:57
Speaker 1: And as much as Pete missed having his friend or around,
4:00
Speaker 1: missed that fearless sense of humor, Keith wasn't really gone gone,
4:06
Speaker 1: not really. He was inside Pete's years, endlessly ringing that
4:11
Speaker 1: non stop, high pitched tone, driving him mad. Keith Moon's
4:17
Speaker 1: cymbals reverberated throughout Pete Townsend's cranium. In fact, the tonight
4:22
Speaker 1: is He'd developed from years of maximum rock and roll
4:25
Speaker 1: was so bad that Pete had decided, even before Keith
4:29
Speaker 1: shuffled off this mortal coil, that the Who would stop touring. Besides,
4:35
Speaker 1: they'd made their point eight albums, two rock operas one
4:39
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty six decibels. That's according to the Guinness
4:42
Speaker 1: Book of World Records and millions sir from Woodstock to
4:45
Speaker 1: the University of Leeds. But then Keith died, which you
4:50
Speaker 1: would think would only underscore Pete's desire to quit the road.
4:55
Speaker 1: It was impossible to imagine the Who without Keith move
4:58
Speaker 1: flailing away at his drum kit, just as it was
5:01
Speaker 1: impossible to imagine them without John Entwhistle's thunderfingers rattling the
5:05
Speaker 1: bass guitar, or Roger Daltrey belting out that iconic rock
5:09
Speaker 1: god's scream. There was no one like Keith Moon. Who
5:15
Speaker 1: else would install spotlights on the beach of his Malibu
5:18
Speaker 1: home and point them at the home of his neighbor
5:21
Speaker 1: Steve McQueen and hopes that he could catch a glimpse
5:24
Speaker 1: of Stevee's girlfriend Ali McGraw naked. Pete Townshend sat in
5:33
Speaker 1: silence as his dead friend split his head open from
5:36
Speaker 1: the inside out with Tonight's and he tried to think,
5:40
Speaker 1: what if, What if Keith's death was a parting gift.
5:45
Speaker 1: What if in Keith's absence there was opportunity, and not
5:50
Speaker 1: just opportunity but duty. A feeling came over Pete, something
5:55
Speaker 1: so overwhelming that it elbowed the ringing in his ears
5:58
Speaker 1: out of the way. Fuck is tonight's Fuck the haters
6:02
Speaker 1: who had never acknowledged the band without Mooney, and fuck
6:05
Speaker 1: the fact that Pete's marriage was falling apart. And by
6:09
Speaker 1: going back out on the road where temptation and indiscretion
6:12
Speaker 1: were plentiful, he was essentially saying so long to that
6:16
Speaker 1: once happy union. Pete didn't care about all that. He
6:20
Speaker 1: felt an unwavering desire to prove himself again, as if
6:24
Speaker 1: to who were starting over. And that's all there was,
6:28
Speaker 1: making music, writing songs, touring and performing. If he simply
6:32
Speaker 1: did the work, then everything else would be okay. At
6:36
Speaker 1: least that was the idea. But the work required a workhorse,
6:42
Speaker 1: not a clone of Keith Moon going buck while behind
6:45
Speaker 1: the kit, a drummer who could keep a steady rhythm
6:48
Speaker 1: and guide the rest of them forward. But what about
6:50
Speaker 1: Phil Collins? Phil was keen Nah, But Phil had his
6:55
Speaker 1: hands full keeping Genesis on the rails, what with Peter
6:57
Speaker 1: Gabriel leaving and all that Pete wanted Kenny Jones formerly
7:02
Speaker 1: of The Faces. Roger Daltrey thought it was a bad
7:05
Speaker 1: idea for the same reason Pete thought it was a
7:06
Speaker 1: good idea. Kenny wasn't Keith. Keith used to play to
7:10
Speaker 1: Roger's vocal and in turn, Roger danced to Keith's performance.
7:15
Speaker 1: It was like the symbiotic musical relationship. It was in
7:18
Speaker 1: the blood to Roger. Kenny Jones was bloodless, but Roger
7:23
Speaker 1: Daltrey wasn't the arguing type. And when Pete Townsend wanted
7:26
Speaker 1: something done, just like Paul McCartney and the Beatles or
7:29
Speaker 1: Rod Stewart and Kenny's old band, The Faces, Pete Townsend
7:33
Speaker 1: got it done. So it was decided the very much
7:39
Speaker 1: alive Kenny Jones replaced the dead Keith Moon and the
7:43
Speaker 1: Who hit the Road. First The Rainbow in London, then
7:46
Speaker 1: the Phrasers Samphi Theater in Ken, France, where their excellent
7:50
Speaker 1: documentary The Kids Are All Right was having its debut,
7:53
Speaker 1: as was the new movie version of their rock opera Quadraphenia,
7:58
Speaker 1: and then on to America. We're on December third, nineteen
8:02
Speaker 1: seventy nine, in Cincinnati, a crowd of excited ticket holders
8:05
Speaker 1: were already assembled outside in frigid temperatures hours before doors opened.
8:11
Speaker 1: There was little assign seating at tonight's show, so these
8:15
Speaker 1: fans were there early in order to claim a spot
8:17
Speaker 1: up front before others beat them to it. And the
8:20
Speaker 1: high school kids that remained in the Who's target demographic
8:23
Speaker 1: in particular, were ready to have the night of their
8:25
Speaker 1: young lives, and it would be a night to remember,
8:29
Speaker 1: a night of maximum rock and roll, a celebration of energy,
8:33
Speaker 1: of losing yourself, and of getting high. But the underpinning
8:37
Speaker 1: of violence that characterized any WHO show, which was typically
8:41
Speaker 1: reserved for one of Pete Townsend's poor guitars. Tonight, that
8:46
Speaker 1: trademark violence would instead strike into the heart of a
8:50
Speaker 1: restless crowd. Jony put her parents Vovo sedan and park
9:18
Speaker 1: and cut the engine. The car needed new brakes, and
9:21
Speaker 1: the check engine kept flashing ominously from the dash. Nevertheless,
9:27
Speaker 1: this bulletproof hunk of steel had somehow made it all
9:30
Speaker 1: the way from her small town outside Cincinnati to hear
9:33
Speaker 1: a garage adjacent to the Riverfront Coliseum, where in just
9:37
Speaker 1: a few hours The Who would perform a sold out
9:39
Speaker 1: show for an audience of eighteen thousand people. Her friend
9:43
Speaker 1: Jean sitting shotguns, sparked her bicklighter and brought the flame
9:46
Speaker 1: to the tip of a tightly rolled joint between her lips.
9:49
Speaker 1: She took a small hit, held it in, exhaled, and
9:53
Speaker 1: then she passed it to Jony. The fuck, Joni said,
9:57
Speaker 1: I told you to do that outside. My dad is
9:59
Speaker 1: gonna kill me if he smells that shit in here.
10:02
Speaker 1: Joni still couldn't believe that she'd managed to convince her
10:04
Speaker 1: parents to let her go to the show in the
10:06
Speaker 1: first place, let alone take their car. Dad was a
10:09
Speaker 1: hard ass, but Mom was a pushover, so that was
10:12
Speaker 1: the ankle. Get mom alone, ask her, and then have
10:15
Speaker 1: her deal with Dad. It worked. Jony was stoked. This
10:21
Speaker 1: is her first show ever, and it was about time.
10:23
Speaker 1: She was seventeen. For Christ's sakes, going to see a
10:26
Speaker 1: show at the Coliseum was a rite, a passage for
10:27
Speaker 1: any high school student in the greater Cincinnati area. Though
10:31
Speaker 1: she was being honest, she didn't care that she didn't
10:33
Speaker 1: see Kissed the year prior. All that makeup and tongue
10:36
Speaker 1: wagging was fucking goofy. She was bombed though, that she
10:40
Speaker 1: missed the Zeppelin show, even though something like a thousand
10:43
Speaker 1: kids without tickets to crash the gates and nearly caused
10:45
Speaker 1: a riot. And that was what her dad was really
10:48
Speaker 1: worried about, all these kids hopped up on dope, libido's
10:51
Speaker 1: raging adrenaline pumping jockeying for position, the who is not
10:56
Speaker 1: her father's rock and roll or anyone's father's rock and roll?
10:59
Speaker 1: For them? At her Joni's mom reminded her dad that
11:02
Speaker 1: the Colisseum had learned from the Zeppelin incident and now
11:06
Speaker 1: only allowed ticket holders onto the plaza outside the venue
11:09
Speaker 1: to ensure something like that would never happen again. And
11:14
Speaker 1: that's where Joni and Jean were headed. Now up the
11:17
Speaker 1: walkway from the garage to the plaza, it was freezing
11:21
Speaker 1: outside twenty degrees give her take. A cold wind blew
11:26
Speaker 1: the red hot end of what was now Jean's roach
11:29
Speaker 1: and tangled Joni's long brown hair in front of her face.
11:33
Speaker 1: Doors weren't scheduled to open until six point thirty, but
11:37
Speaker 1: they were here early, as were thousands of others. The
11:40
Speaker 1: show was first come, first served, quote unquote festival seating
11:44
Speaker 1: as it was called, which basically means general omission for
11:47
Speaker 1: arenas and if you wanted to spot up front in
11:50
Speaker 1: the pit, where the action was just feet away from
11:52
Speaker 1: Roger Daltrey twirling the microphone cord and Pete towns In
11:56
Speaker 1: erupting into a flurry of windmills on his guitar. Were
11:59
Speaker 1: you not only heard, but felt the power of the
12:02
Speaker 1: loudest rock band on the planet. You'd better show up
12:05
Speaker 1: well in advance, shit, Johnny thought, she surveyed the crowd.
12:11
Speaker 1: Not nearly early enough. The plaza was a zoo, thousands
12:16
Speaker 1: upon thousands of people. All sixteen doors leading inside were
12:21
Speaker 1: of course still closed and would be until the appointed time.
12:25
Speaker 1: Jony looked at her watch, five point thirty one hour
12:29
Speaker 1: ago before they could get out of the cold and
12:30
Speaker 1: receive that dose of maximum rock and roll. With Jeane
12:34
Speaker 1: by her side, she claimed a spot among the rest
12:37
Speaker 1: of the fans, and they huddled their bodies together for warmth,
12:41
Speaker 1: And then they waited inside the coliseum. Pete Townsend was
12:47
Speaker 1: getting in tune. He had his trademark Marshall's Stack assembled,
12:51
Speaker 1: one speaker cab on top of the other, a configuration
12:54
Speaker 1: that Jim Marshall himself, the man the Marshall Stack is
12:57
Speaker 1: named for, once told Pete not to do because one
13:01
Speaker 1: of those giant ass speakers could topple over and kill
13:03
Speaker 1: somebody good. That meant it was dangerous, not to mention necessary,
13:09
Speaker 1: because every time Pete added some extra water to his rig,
13:12
Speaker 1: John Entwhistle did one better on his side of the street,
13:16
Speaker 1: Fucking ent Whistle, always trying to drown out Pete with
13:19
Speaker 1: his base. This is the real reason why the Who
13:22
Speaker 1: were so damn loud. Two sparring egos on either side
13:25
Speaker 1: of the stage, each unwilling to let the other have
13:28
Speaker 1: more juice. The Who's manager, Bill Kurvishly, meanwhile, tried to
13:33
Speaker 1: remain egoless and matter of fact as he surveyed the scene.
13:38
Speaker 1: His band was about to perform the most anticipated show
13:40
Speaker 1: of the year in Cincinnati. It had sold out an
13:43
Speaker 1: under an hour, close to fifteen thousand festival seating tickets
13:47
Speaker 1: on the floor at ten bucks a pop, and another
13:50
Speaker 1: thirty five hundred or so at eleven bucks each for
13:52
Speaker 1: low seating up above. Bill Curvishly made the rounds. He
13:57
Speaker 1: walked through the mostly empty coliseum and imagined it through
14:00
Speaker 1: the rafters. He passed the vendors prepping Budweisers and orange Julius.
14:05
Speaker 1: The guards stationed at ramp entrances leading into the venue
14:09
Speaker 1: and the off duty cops collecting time and a half.
14:13
Speaker 1: And one of those cops passed Bill on his way
14:15
Speaker 1: from taking a piss in the men's bathroom, heading back
14:17
Speaker 1: outside to worry. He was one of twenty five officers
14:20
Speaker 1: overseeing what was now a crowd of approximately eight thousand. Again,
14:26
Speaker 1: twenty five cops for eight thousand kids. It was now
14:32
Speaker 1: long past six point thirty. All sixteen doors remained closed.
14:37
Speaker 1: Joni and Jean were still huddled together, still trying to
14:40
Speaker 1: stay warm. Now somewhere in the middle of the mob,
14:43
Speaker 1: thousands of people in front and behind them, and people
14:47
Speaker 1: were getting restless. They were cold, they were anxious, and
14:50
Speaker 1: they were pissed off that the doors were supposed to
14:52
Speaker 1: be opened by now. Some were screaming, let us in.
14:56
Speaker 1: Others ran from outside the perimeter of bodies and catapulted
14:59
Speaker 1: themselves into the middle. Amongst all this commotion and impatience,
15:03
Speaker 1: the crowd began to shift on its own, not as
15:06
Speaker 1: eight thousand separate individuals, but as one connected mass. Jony
15:11
Speaker 1: felt herself getting pushed forward, and then suddenly, from inside
15:15
Speaker 1: the coliseum, she hurting, They all hurting. The sound of
15:20
Speaker 1: rock and roll. The sound of The Who. There was
15:25
Speaker 1: no mistaking it. There are conflicting reports on what this
15:31
Speaker 1: sound actually was, if it was The Who performing a
15:35
Speaker 1: late sound check, or whether it was a test run
15:37
Speaker 1: of footage from the new Quadraphenia movie, which was going
15:40
Speaker 1: to be shown directly before The Who's performance in lieu
15:42
Speaker 1: of an opening band. Whatever it was, it made the
15:47
Speaker 1: eight thousand people in counting outside lose their minds because
15:51
Speaker 1: they thought the show would be done and they were
15:53
Speaker 1: missing out. They're starting, They're fucking starting, Let us in,
15:57
Speaker 1: and what the fuck? The crowd surged forward. Jodi tried
16:02
Speaker 1: to move, but there was no room nowhere to go.
16:05
Speaker 1: She felt her feet lift off the ground, and up
16:09
Speaker 1: ahead she could see two doors were open. Right? Was that?
16:13
Speaker 1: What she saw?
16:15
Speaker 2: Was that it?
16:16
Speaker 1: The crowd surge brought her back down again, only this
16:19
Speaker 1: time her feet weren't touching the plaza floor. Now her
16:23
Speaker 1: feet were on someone's back and someone's chest, some poor
16:26
Speaker 1: kid flat on the ground underneath her, wheezing for air.
16:30
Speaker 1: The kids cries drowned out by thousands screaming and shouting,
16:33
Speaker 1: and then, abruptly, like a bomb going off, the sound
16:36
Speaker 1: of the plate glass windows of a dozen or so
16:38
Speaker 1: locked doors up ahead, shattering Kids who just moments ago
16:42
Speaker 1: were pressed up against those locked doors, their faces flattened
16:45
Speaker 1: against the cold glass, were now being thrust inside through
16:49
Speaker 1: the glass shards, their shoes, their coats, their shirts ripped
16:53
Speaker 1: right off their bodies as they passed through the jagged,
16:55
Speaker 1: narrow openings. For those lucky enough to be in front
16:59
Speaker 1: of one of the only open there was a mad
17:01
Speaker 1: dash to get through. You were only as fast as
17:04
Speaker 1: the massive people that surrounded you, all shoving forward to
17:08
Speaker 1: the same destination, the same doorway, the same turnstile, all
17:12
Speaker 1: at once. Bodies squeezed tight against bodies, chest compress, and
17:17
Speaker 1: that flow of oxygen was cut off, just like that.
17:22
Speaker 1: Joni watched in horror as bodies began to be hoisted
17:26
Speaker 1: into the air and passed to the back of the
17:27
Speaker 1: crowd above her. Those bodies were limb passed out in
17:31
Speaker 1: shock or worse. The mere sight sent Joni into shock.
17:35
Speaker 1: She looked around for Gene and only now realized that
17:38
Speaker 1: they've been separated. She screamed out Jean Jeane. She continued
17:41
Speaker 1: to be pushed forward, unable to control her movement, getting
17:44
Speaker 1: closer to one of the open doors. Nearly there, trying
17:47
Speaker 1: to call out for her friend again, but finding she
17:49
Speaker 1: could no longer breathe. The crush of bodies around her
17:52
Speaker 1: pushed closer to the entrance. She struggled to break free
17:55
Speaker 1: to get air into her lungs. No use she was
17:59
Speaker 1: into from the door now, and then a massive wave
18:03
Speaker 1: of momentum came from behind that Joni was helpless to resist.
18:07
Speaker 1: Her body was thrown forward, wrestling her free from the
18:10
Speaker 1: body surrounding her. Finally she could breathe again, and as
18:15
Speaker 1: she catapulted toward the ground, she took a huge gulp
18:18
Speaker 1: of air. Her body landed next to her, lying on
18:22
Speaker 1: the plaza floor. A kid younger than her skin turned blue,
18:27
Speaker 1: unconscious or dead, she couldn't tell which. She freaked. Feet
18:32
Speaker 1: were raining down on top of her, now, a stampede
18:35
Speaker 1: that kept coming and seemed to have no end.
18:45
Speaker 3: We'll be right back after this.
18:47
Speaker 1: We're we're, we're. Ken Blackwell, the newly elected mayor of Cincinnati,
18:57
Speaker 1: just hours into his first day on the job, was
19:00
Speaker 1: only a telephone receiver up to his ear and looking
19:02
Speaker 1: like he'd just been knocked into a stupor. He had
19:05
Speaker 1: that look because just moments earlier, while in the middle
19:08
Speaker 1: of dinner with the United States Speaker of the House
19:09
Speaker 1: Tip O'Neil, Blackwell was being briefed on a tragedy unfolding
19:13
Speaker 1: at the Riverfront Colisseum. And what the hell a tragedy?
19:18
Speaker 1: What do you mean a tragedy fatalities? He was told.
19:23
Speaker 1: The voices of Cincinnati police and fire on the other
19:25
Speaker 1: end of the line were breathless. Mayor Blackwell was stunned.
19:30
Speaker 1: How many fatalities are we talking about? The total number
19:34
Speaker 1: was unknown, but they all seemed to be occurring outside
19:38
Speaker 1: the Colisseum at the plaza level. The fire marshals suspected
19:41
Speaker 1: mass overdosage. You know, kids today, mister Merriser, thinking they're
19:45
Speaker 1: invincible and all that, thinking they can handle a puff
19:47
Speaker 1: off this and a tab off that, and you also
19:50
Speaker 1: can't roll out a batch of bad dope making its
19:52
Speaker 1: way through the crowd like a silent killer. The fire marshal,
19:56
Speaker 1: of course, was unaware, as everyone was at the moment,
19:59
Speaker 1: that the real reason people were dying was not because
20:01
Speaker 1: of a quote unquote mass overdosage, and also not because
20:05
Speaker 1: they were being trampled, according to the long held theory,
20:08
Speaker 1: but instead because they were squeezed together so tightly that
20:13
Speaker 1: their lungs couldn't expand they were literally asphyxiated standing up
20:19
Speaker 1: strangled by the people crushed alongside them. Still at the time,
20:26
Speaker 1: at this moment, all that was known was that the
20:29
Speaker 1: scene outside of the venue was chaotic and gruesome and
20:32
Speaker 1: the show was about to start. So what do we do?
20:36
Speaker 1: The mayor asked, and the fire marshal's opinion was to
20:39
Speaker 1: shut the whole thing down before more kids died, and
20:42
Speaker 1: the mayor scraunched up his face. He could feel the
20:44
Speaker 1: tension headache coming on strong rip between his eyes. If
20:48
Speaker 1: they shut it down now, now that the show had
20:51
Speaker 1: started and all eighteen thousand people were on site, who's
20:54
Speaker 1: to say that wouldn't create a more dangerous situation. What
20:57
Speaker 1: if it turned out like the Zeppelin show from last year,
20:59
Speaker 1: but even worse. And let's not forget the people were
21:02
Speaker 1: dying not inside the venue of private space, but outside
21:05
Speaker 1: on the plaza, which is public property. Did they even
21:09
Speaker 1: have the legal authority to stop it? With that, Mayor
21:13
Speaker 1: Blackwell made his first major decision as Cincinnati's new mayor
21:16
Speaker 1: on day one. No less, the show would go on.
21:24
Speaker 1: Joni was stumbling around in a daze, she took stock
21:28
Speaker 1: of her surroundings. Somehow she made it inside the coliseum.
21:32
Speaker 1: She had no idea how she'd done it, how she'd
21:35
Speaker 1: managed to get off the ground, avoid being trampled to death,
21:39
Speaker 1: avoid being asphyxiated to death. But however she managed it
21:43
Speaker 1: felt like she had gone through a war zone to
21:45
Speaker 1: get here. To her left, she saw piles of shoes
21:49
Speaker 1: and clothes, sacrificial offerings stripped off the feet and backs,
21:53
Speaker 1: with those who had only minutes earlier clawed their way in.
21:57
Speaker 1: To her right, people scrambled past, no doubt, making a
22:01
Speaker 1: mad dash to the pit down in front of the
22:03
Speaker 1: stage and behind her. Outside in the plaza, red and
22:07
Speaker 1: blue lights swirled hypnotically, police cars, ambulances, news crews. They
22:13
Speaker 1: were all descending on the disaster unfolding in the freezing night.
22:17
Speaker 1: There were bodies scattered across the cold ground. Some were
22:20
Speaker 1: already dead and covered with blankets, while others were being
22:23
Speaker 1: revived by overwhelmed EMTs, not sure where to direct their efforts,
22:29
Speaker 1: and what about Gene, Where the hell was Jane? Joni
22:34
Speaker 1: frantically looked for her friend as she made her way inside,
22:37
Speaker 1: the calls see him into the main hall, where the
22:40
Speaker 1: stage was set with the Who's Marshall stacks. At the moment,
22:44
Speaker 1: a giant screen was hanging from the rafters, and on
22:47
Speaker 1: that screen, scenes from the newly released Quadrophenia movie were
22:50
Speaker 1: being played. Quadrophenia was the Who's second rock opera, following
22:56
Speaker 1: the group's groundbreaking Tommy. Originally released as a double album
22:59
Speaker 1: in nighteen seventy three, it told the story of the
23:02
Speaker 1: Mods and the Rockers battling it out in London and Brighton.
23:06
Speaker 1: It's a world from which the Who were born, one
23:09
Speaker 1: which now represented their old legacy, their past life, one
23:12
Speaker 1: in which Keith Moon sat on their drum riser and
23:15
Speaker 1: not Kenny Jones. But the crowd of thousands looking up
23:19
Speaker 1: at the screen weren't thinking about legacy right now. They
23:23
Speaker 1: were watching a bloody scene unfold, a scene in which
23:26
Speaker 1: the Mods and the Rockers brutally attack each other on
23:29
Speaker 1: Brighton Beach. The violence, the blood, the chaos. It was
23:33
Speaker 1: as if what had just transpired outside was now being
23:36
Speaker 1: rerun on the screen, art imitating life, or the other
23:40
Speaker 1: way around. For those who had just gone through a
23:42
Speaker 1: harrowing near death experience simply to gain entrance now felt
23:45
Speaker 1: like they were being shown that whole ordeal all over again.
23:51
Speaker 1: Joni wasn't looking at the screen, she was looking for
23:53
Speaker 1: her friend, and she was still looking when the house
23:56
Speaker 1: lights went down and the Who had long last appeared,
24:00
Speaker 1: Roger Daltrey with his blonde hair cut short, a bearded
24:03
Speaker 1: Pete Townsend, John Entwhistle, the Ox locking into a groove
24:07
Speaker 1: with Kenny Jones still trying to prove he was worthy
24:10
Speaker 1: of Keith Moon's vacant scene, all four of them completely
24:14
Speaker 1: unaware of what had just happened, as were many of
24:17
Speaker 1: the thousands in the audience. Listening to the audio from
24:21
Speaker 1: the show, it sounds like just another Who show, a
24:24
Speaker 1: killer performance for a pumped up crowd. Of course, we
24:27
Speaker 1: now know that there were some in the audience at
24:30
Speaker 1: night who sat on the sidelines, traumatized by the stampede,
24:33
Speaker 1: stunned and dazed, letting the music wash over them like
24:36
Speaker 1: the cold waves crashing on Brighton Beach. They didn't even applaud.
24:40
Speaker 1: All they could think about were the bodies they'd seen
24:42
Speaker 1: on the ground on the plaza, faces gone blue, eyes
24:45
Speaker 1: glazed over. All there was left to do now is
24:48
Speaker 1: not to enjoy the show, but simply survive it count
24:51
Speaker 1: down the minute, song after song, who are You? Pinball Wizard,
24:55
Speaker 1: Aunt Whistle, taking the reins for my wife, until the
24:58
Speaker 1: show Merciful we came to an end. And when it
25:03
Speaker 1: did finally end, thank fucking god. It was time to
25:05
Speaker 1: get the hell out. And Joni watched as thousands of
25:09
Speaker 1: people began moving toward the exit, and she was back
25:12
Speaker 1: to the beginning, back to a few hours ago, when
25:14
Speaker 1: the masses had been streaming in the opposite direction. Freedom
25:17
Speaker 1: was just a few footsteps away. She could see it
25:20
Speaker 1: there through the shattered plate glass doors, past the piles
25:23
Speaker 1: of clothes and shoes, the bodies covered in blankets, the
25:26
Speaker 1: pulse of ambulance lights. Then she felt hands grabbed her shoulders.
25:31
Speaker 1: She spun around and it was Gene. Holy shit, it
25:35
Speaker 1: was Gene. It was all too much for both of them.
25:39
Speaker 1: The tears came, tears of relief, of confusion, of fear,
25:44
Speaker 1: tears that you shed when you realize that not everyone
25:46
Speaker 1: in a crowd of eighteen thousand had lived to see
25:48
Speaker 1: what you had just saw. Backstage, there were no tears,
25:57
Speaker 1: just celebratory drinks. In that post show you Pete, Roger,
26:02
Speaker 1: John and Kenny were high on rock and roll, still
26:06
Speaker 1: blissfully unaware of the tragedy that had occurred just beyond
26:09
Speaker 1: the doors of the venue they were currently sitting in.
26:12
Speaker 1: And this is because their manager, Bill Kurbishly have purposefully
26:16
Speaker 1: kept them in the dark so that they could finish
26:17
Speaker 1: the show as if it were any other night. The
26:20
Speaker 1: alternative wasn't pretty, stopping the show and risking a riot
26:24
Speaker 1: and more deaths. But now it was time to bring
26:27
Speaker 1: the boys back down to earth, and the high they
26:29
Speaker 1: were riding on was about to come to a sudden,
26:32
Speaker 1: sobering end. Bill Kervishly had that look on his face,
26:36
Speaker 1: but look he only expressed when things were unspeakably grim.
26:40
Speaker 1: Gather on voice, he said, something terrible happened out there tonight.
26:45
Speaker 1: Pete Townsend's ears throbbed with the noise from that night's
26:48
Speaker 1: show and every night show from the last fifteen odd years.
26:53
Speaker 1: This is one of those moments when he wished, is
26:55
Speaker 1: tonight this was so bad that he was actually deaf,
26:58
Speaker 1: because then he wouldn't have to hear what Bill had
27:00
Speaker 1: to say. Next. Eleven People were Dead Blow Slower December
27:30
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, New York City. Pete Townsend was going
27:34
Speaker 1: on our twelve half a day spent sitting on a
27:38
Speaker 1: radio old couch and a drug den. Some Wall Street
27:41
Speaker 1: traders sitting in his right sparked a lighter and held
27:44
Speaker 1: into a slab of tinfoil. Pete moved in, piped between
27:48
Speaker 1: his lips and took a hit. His lungs burned and
27:52
Speaker 1: his eyes teared up, and then the space between his
27:54
Speaker 1: ears went numb. The ringing, the ghost of Keith Moon,
27:58
Speaker 1: It all just went away, and Pete Townsend was transported
28:06
Speaker 1: Freebasing cocaine was Pete Townsend's ticket to a fantasy land.
28:10
Speaker 1: And I don't mean a couch in a drug den
28:12
Speaker 1: somewhere in New York City, which was, in its own
28:15
Speaker 1: unique way, the very definition of a fantasy land. I'm
28:18
Speaker 1: talking about the one inside of his head, the one
28:20
Speaker 1: where he wasn't an alcoholic, or wasn't over a million
28:23
Speaker 1: dollars in debt from mismanaged funds, or wasn't trying to
28:27
Speaker 1: navigate a girlfriend on the side while his wife understandably
28:30
Speaker 1: fumed at home, or that it didn't feel like his
28:32
Speaker 1: band was about to implode at any moment. At this moment, however,
28:37
Speaker 1: Pete was on a self imposed break from the Who Won,
28:41
Speaker 1: during which the band's manager, Bill kurviishly strongly advised Pete
28:45
Speaker 1: against drinking and drugging. But if the work was on hold,
28:50
Speaker 1: the work being the thing that got Pete through the hardship,
28:53
Speaker 1: the work being the thing that made everything okay, something
28:56
Speaker 1: else had to fill the void, and Pete towns End,
28:58
Speaker 1: sure shit wasn't going to take up golf, hitting a
29:01
Speaker 1: ball into a hole, wasn't going to push something like
29:04
Speaker 1: Cincinnati down deep into the recesses of his mind. You
29:08
Speaker 1: needed the hard stuff for that. To not think about
29:11
Speaker 1: the eleven kids who died that night just two years ago,
29:14
Speaker 1: and they were just kids, really, with the exception of
29:17
Speaker 1: one twenty seven year old, all of them between the
29:19
Speaker 1: ages of fifteen and twenty one. To not think about
29:22
Speaker 1: questions like why weren't more doors open for a crowd
29:25
Speaker 1: of eighteen thousand people, Or did the anxiety over festival
29:29
Speaker 1: seating or the potential it presented for overselling the show
29:32
Speaker 1: contribute to the tragedy, or who exactly was to blame
29:36
Speaker 1: the venue, the promoter, the city, the WHO. Relatives of
29:42
Speaker 1: the dead sued all of the above, and just months
29:45
Speaker 1: after the show, a settlement was nearly reached, but then
29:49
Speaker 1: Pete shot his mouth off in an interview in Rolling
29:51
Speaker 1: Stone magazine in which he said of the Cincinnati aftermath, quote,
29:55
Speaker 1: our guard dropped just for a second, and then it
29:57
Speaker 1: was back up again. It was We're not going to
29:59
Speaker 1: live a little thing like this, stop us unquote, the
30:03
Speaker 1: little thing being the deaths of eleven people. Again, it
30:07
Speaker 1: was the same logic Pete used when Keith died, allowing
30:10
Speaker 1: a tragic event to galvanize you, not hold you back.
30:14
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's kind of fucked up, But that's how
30:17
Speaker 1: Pete saw it, not that he was seen clearly at all. Cocaine, heroin,
30:22
Speaker 1: prescription drugs and alcohol had him fully checked out from
30:25
Speaker 1: dealing with anything real. He knew living like this was unsustainable.
30:30
Speaker 1: Hope I die before I get old and all that
30:33
Speaker 1: were the musings of a twenty year old. Pete was
30:35
Speaker 1: in his mid thirties. Now, He'd seen death up close,
30:39
Speaker 1: and he wanted to be on the other side of that.
30:44
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty two, Pete checked himself into an electro
30:46
Speaker 1: acupuncture clinic in San Diego and got clean, at least
30:50
Speaker 1: for the first time. Months later, Who released their tenth
30:53
Speaker 1: studio album It's Hard, featuring the single Eminence Front, which
30:58
Speaker 1: was all about the drug induced facade Pete had been
31:01
Speaker 1: putting up for years, and then Pete put up the money.
31:05
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty three, the majority of the lawsuits stemming
31:08
Speaker 1: from the Cincinnati concert tragedy were settled two point one
31:12
Speaker 1: million dollars in total, that's about six point eight million today.
31:16
Speaker 1: The families of the victims received about one hundred and
31:18
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars each, which left seven hundred and fifty
31:21
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to be split between twenty three others who
31:24
Speaker 1: had been badly injured. Only nine of the eleven victims
31:27
Speaker 1: were represented in the settlement. One family chose not to sue,
31:31
Speaker 1: and another often not to settle, instead seeking a court
31:34
Speaker 1: trial and over eight million dollars in damages, and they
31:37
Speaker 1: later settled for an undisclosed amount. But when it came
31:41
Speaker 1: to facing what happened in Cincinnati to really dealing with it,
31:45
Speaker 1: that took much longer for Pete forty years to be exact.
31:50
Speaker 1: It was twenty twenty two when Pete Townsend and Who
31:53
Speaker 1: returned to the city for the first time since nineteen
31:55
Speaker 1: seventy nine. Things were different by then Kenny Jones was out,
32:00
Speaker 1: John Entwhistle was dead, Pete and Roger weren't as loud
32:03
Speaker 1: or as dangerous as they once were, but they could
32:06
Speaker 1: still use music to celebrate energy and losing yourself and
32:10
Speaker 1: getting high, while at the same time rejecting once and
32:13
Speaker 1: for all the notion of rock and roll as nothing
32:16
Speaker 1: but a tragic disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this his disgrace.
32:37
Speaker 3: Alrighty, then, thanks for hanging with me and the Who
32:40
Speaker 3: in this episode. Apple podcast listeners, make sure you have
32:42
Speaker 3: auto downloads turned on so you never miss any downloads. Guys,
32:45
Speaker 3: this week's question of the week is was the Riverfront
32:49
Speaker 3: Coliseum of Tragedy the worst tragedy in rock and roll history?
32:53
Speaker 3: There are plenty of others to choose from, and we've
32:55
Speaker 3: covered a bunch on this podcast. Let me know six
32:57
Speaker 3: one seven nine oh six six six three eight, Leave
33:00
Speaker 3: me a voicemail semi a text with your answer, and
33:02
Speaker 3: you might hear yourself on the Afterparty bonus episode coming
33:05
Speaker 3: up right after this. Leave a review for Disgraceland on
33:07
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts or Spotify and win some free merch.
33:10
Speaker 1: Alrighty, I got to return some videotapes. Here comes some credits.
33:13
Speaker 4: Disgracelam was created by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership.
33:17
Speaker 1: With Double Elvis.
33:18
Speaker 4: Credits for this episode can be found on the show
33:20
Speaker 4: notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If you're listening as
33:24
Speaker 4: a disgracelan All Access member, thank.
33:26
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33:28
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33:52
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Speaker 4: at disgraceland Pod rock a Rolla.
34:08
Speaker 1: He's a bad, bad man.