Friday, February 21, 2003

I assume you've heard that there was a fire at a Rhode Island heavy metal bar where Great White was playing. (The band's own website is down. Their Capitol Records website is up. Turn on your audio and you can hear "Once Bitten, Twice Shy", which is their only song I remember, though I know they were around before that.) They were an up-and-coming L.A. band when I was in high school--one of those Quiet Riot-type hair-and-spandex bands that died out in the late '80s and were permanently killed by grunge and rap. Check out the Capitol website--they look like a real-life Spinal Tap, and check out their lyrics, which are incredibly dumb. Anyway, they were playing a gig at a 300-capacity venue in a redneck Rhode Island town. They kicked off their first song, and either those idiots or the moron club owner set off a bunch of pyrotechnics and the place just went up. At least 54 people are known dead and that's not all it's going to be. They all headed for the front door and ignored the other three exits, which were open. Damned shame. This is probably one of those things that happens once and then, because everyone sees that it was stupid to allow this to go on in the first place, never happens again. (Examples: "festival seating" after the Who concert where those people got crushed; excessive drinking in sports stadiums.) I guarantee you that, instantly, pyrotechnics will be prohibited indoors, and every building inspector in the goddamned country is going to inspect every nightclub in the country tomorrow.

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