The Who concert disaster was a
crowd disaster that occurred on December 3, 1979, when English rock band
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup consisted of lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist and singer Pete Townshend, bass guitarist and singer John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They are considered ...
performed at
Riverfront Coliseum (now known as Heritage Bank Center) in
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...
, Ohio, United States, and a rush of concert-goers outside the Coliseum's entry doors resulted in the deaths of 11 people.
Background
The Who was in the midst of the United States leg of its
1979 world tour, which began in September with a total of seven dates split between the
Capitol Theatre in
Passaic, New Jersey
Passaic ( or ) is a city in Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city had a total population of 70,537, ranking as the 16th largest municipality in New Jersey and an increase of 656 from the 69,7 ...
and
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylv ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. The tour was its first following the 1978 death of drummer
Keith Moon
Keith John Moon (23 August 19467 September 1978) was an English drummer for the rock band the Who. He was noted for his unique style of playing and his eccentric, often self-destructive behaviour and addiction to drugs and alcohol.
Moon grew ...
and its first to feature former
Small Faces
Small Faces were an English rock band from London, founded in 1965. The group originally consisted of Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones and Jimmy Winston, with Ian McLagan replacing Winston as the band's keyboardist in 1966. The ...
drummer
Kenney Jones as Moon's official replacement. The band then took some time off, and resumed the tour on November 30 at the auditorium of the
Detroit Masonic Temple
The Detroit Masonic Temple is the world's largest Masonic Temple. Located in the Cass Corridor of Detroit, Michigan, at 500 Temple Street, the building serves as a home to various masonic organizations including the York Rite Sovereign Colleg ...
. The Cincinnati concert was the third show played in this portion of the tour, after a concert the night before at the
Pittsburgh Civic Arena.
The concert was a sellout, with 18,348 tickets sold.
Summary of events
People were originally told through a radio station that General Admission ticket holders would be admitted at 3:00 p.m. and therefore a sizable crowd formed by 5:00 p.m. Although all the doors were expected to be opened simultaneously, only a pair of doors at the far right of the main entrance were finally opened. As concert goers entered the stadium through these two open doors, those waiting in front of all of the other doors began pushing forward again.
After a short period of waiting and then knocking on the doors and the glass next to the doors, the crowd assumed that none of the remaining doors would be opened. At about 7:15 p.m., the situation began to escalate. Conflicting reports suggested that concertgoers could hear either a very late soundcheck or The Who's ''
Quadrophenia
''Quadrophenia'' is the sixth studio album by the English rock band the Who, released as a double album on 26 October 1973 by Track Records. It is the group's third rock opera, the two previous being the "mini-opera" song "A Quick One, Whil ...
'' movie, in lieu of an opening act. Either way, the crowd assumed that The Who were on earlier than scheduled.
At that point, the entire crowd surged and pushed toward the two doors which had been opened. This caused many people to get trampled while some suffered more serious injuries. Eleven people were unable to escape the dense crowd pushing toward them and died by
asphyxiation
Asphyxia or asphyxiation is a condition of deficient supply of oxygen to the body which arises from abnormal breathing. Asphyxia causes generalized hypoxia, which affects primarily the tissues and organs. There are many circumstances that can ...
. Twenty-six other people reported injuries.
Fire officials advised Who manager
Bill Curbishley to cancel the concert, but he convinced them to allow the show to continue to avoid further panic.
The concert went on as planned, with the band members not told of the tragedy until after their performance.
Years later, Who guitarist
Pete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend (; born 19 May 1945) is an English musician. He is co-founder, leader, guitarist, second lead vocalist and principal songwriter of the Who, one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s.
Towns ...
recalled his feelings after the show; "I went through two phases. One was, of course, tremendous upset and concern. But the other was incredible anger that we had been performing while this was going on."
The following night, a lengthy segment on the tragedy aired on the ''
CBS Evening News
The ''CBS Evening News'' is the flagship evening television news program of CBS News, the news division of the CBS television network in the United States. The ''CBS Evening News'' is a daily evening broadcast featuring news reports, feature st ...
'' with
Walter Cronkite
Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the ''CBS Evening News'' for 19 years (1962–1981). During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the mo ...
examining violence at rock concerts. At The Who's next concert in
Buffalo on December 4, lead singer
Roger Daltrey
Roger Harry Daltrey (born 1 March 1944) is an English singer, musician and actor. He is a co-founder and the lead singer of the rock band The Who.
Daltrey's hit songs with The Who include " My Generation", " Pinball Wizard", " Won't Get Fooled ...
told the crowd: "We lost a lot of family last night. This show's for them." Years later, Townshend said he regretted leaving Cincinnati and continuing to tour, remarking on the Buffalo concert "We’re in the wrong city. We’re in Buffalo."
The eleven people who died in the crush were:
* Walter Adams, Jr., aged 22,
Trotwood, Ohio
* Peter Bowes, aged 18,
Wyoming, Ohio
Wyoming is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, Hamilton County, Ohio; It is located approximately 12 miles north of downtown Cincinnati and is part of the Cincinnati metropolitan area. The population was 8,756 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 ce ...
* Connie Sue Burns, aged 21,
Miamisburg, Ohio
Miamisburg ( ) is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio. The population was 20,181 at the time of the 2010 census. A suburb of Dayton. It is part of the Dayton metropolitan area. Miamisburg is known for its large industry (mainly for its nucle ...
* Jacqueline Eckerle, aged 15,
Finneytown, Ohio
* David Heck, aged 19,
Highland Heights, Kentucky
* Teva Rae Inlow Ladd, aged 27,
Newtown, Ohio
Newtown is a village in southeastern Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, near Cincinnati. The population was 2,702 at the 2020 census. Newtown was settled in 1792 and incorporated as a village in 1901.
History
Multiple Native American mound ...
* Karen Morrison, aged 15, Finneytown, Ohio
* Stephan Preston, aged 19, Finneytown, Ohio
* Philip Snyder, aged 20,
Franklin, Ohio
* Bryan Wagner, aged 17,
Fort Thomas, Kentucky
Fort Thomas is a home rule-class city in Campbell County, Kentucky, United States, on the southern bank of the Ohio River and the site of an 1890 US Army post. The population was 16,325 at the 2010 census, making it the largest city in Campb ...
* James Theodore Warmoth, aged 21, Franklin, Ohio
Walter Adams Jr., The Cincinnati Enquirer 1979-12-05 page B-2.jpg, Walter Adams, Jr.
Peter Bowes, The Cincinnati Post 1979-12-05 page 1 (cropped).jpg, Peter Bowes
Connie Burns, The Cincinnati Enquirer 1979-12-05 page B-2.jpg, Connie Burns
Jacqueline Ecklerle, The Cincinnati Enquirer 1979-12-05 page B-2.jpg, Jacqueline Eckerle
David Heck, The Cincinnati Enquirer 1979-12-05 page B-2.jpg, David Heck
Karen Morrison, The Cincinnati Enquirer 1979-12-05 page B-2.jpg, Karen Morrison
Steve Preston, The Cincinnati Enquirer 1979-12-05 page B-2.jpg, Steve Preston
Bryan Wagner, The Cincinnati Enquirer 1979-12-05 page B-2.jpg, Bryan Wagner
James Warmoth, The Cincinnati Enquirer 1979-12-05 page B-2.jpg, James Warmoth
Aftermath
In
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...
, Mayor
Vincent A. Cianci cancelled a scheduled performance of The Who at the city's
Civic Center that same month.
This was despite the fact that the Providence venue had assigned seating.
In 2012, the band returned to Providence and honored tickets from the 1979 show.
The families of the victims sued the band, concert promoter
Electric Factory Concerts, and the city of Cincinnati. The class action suit filed on behalf of ten of the families was settled in 1983, awarding each of the families of the deceased approximately $150,000 ($ today). The family of Peter Bowes opted out of the class action and settled later for an undisclosed amount. Approximately $750,000 ($ today) was to be divided among the 26 injured. The city of Cincinnati also imposed a ban on unassigned
festival seating on December 27, 1979, with minor exceptions, for the next 25 years.
The incident was the subject of a book, ''Are the Kids All Right? The Rock Generation and Its Hidden Death Wish'', as well as a second-season episode of ''
WKRP in Cincinnati
''WKRP in Cincinnati'' is an American sitcom television series about the misadventures of the staff of a struggling fictional radio station in Cincinnati, Ohio. The show was created by Hugh Wilson and was based upon his experiences working ...
'' called "
In Concert". It also inspired scenes in the film ''
Pink Floyd – The Wall'', whose 1982 premiere was attended by The Who's
Pete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend (; born 19 May 1945) is an English musician. He is co-founder, leader, guitarist, second lead vocalist and principal songwriter of the Who, one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s.
Towns ...
.
In 2004, the city of Cincinnati permanently repealed its long-standing ban on unassigned seating, two years after temporarily making an exception for a Bruce Springsteen concert.
The goal of lifting the ban was to attract more big-name acts. However, the city now mandates there must be nine square feet per person at a venue, and the number of tickets sold for each event is adjusted accordingly.
Paul Wertheimer, the city's first Public Information Officer at the time of the tragedy, went on to serve on a task force on crowd control, and later founded Crowd Management Strategies in 1992, a consulting firm based in Los Angeles.
In 2009, thirty years after the tragedy, rock station
WEBN/102.7 aired a retrospective on the event, including clips from news coverage in 1979.
The P.E.M. Memorial was created in August 2010 to commemorate the lives of those who were tragically lost while awaiting entry to the concert. Every first Saturday in December, local musicians perform at the P.E.M. Memorial. The free concert features old and new tunes to raise awareness of the P.E.M. Scholarship Fund. Of the 11 people who died that day, three were from Finneytown High School – Stephan Preston, Jackie Eckerle and Karen Morrison. Three scholarships are awarded annually to eligible Finneytown High School seniors who are pursuing higher education in the arts or music at an accredited university or college. In 2018, Roger Daltrey visited the Finneytown High School and met with a group of family members of victims and survivors. Daltrey and the families later said the meeting brought a great deal of peace and healing.
In 2014,
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. The band's lineup consists of founding members Jeff Ament (bass guitar), Stone Gossard (rhythm guitar), Mike McCready (lead guitar), and Eddie Vedder (lead vocals, g ...
played in the city and acknowledged the tragedy. They dedicated a cover of The Who's "The Real Me" to those who died. Pearl Jam had experienced a similar tragedy in 2000, when nine people died in a crush during their concert at
Roskilde Festival
The Roskilde Festival is a Danish music festival held annually south of Roskilde. It is one of the largest music festivals in Europe and the largest in the Nordic countries. It was created in 1971 by two high school students and a promoter. In 1 ...
.
On the eve of the 35th anniversary of the tragedy, Cincinnati Mayor
John Cranley promised to have a historical marker on the site of the tragedy in 2015. A committee consisting of three concert survivors (Mike Babb, Thomas Brown, Rick Schwitzer) and one family member of victim Teva Ladd (Kasey Ladd) were pivotal in getting the memorial placed. The marker was dedicated at U. S. Bank Arena (as it was then known) on December 3, 2015.
The Showtime series ''
Roadies'' dedicated an entire episode to the 1979 event. The episode, "The City Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken", showcases the "roadies" of a fictional band completing many rituals after someone on the tour bus mentions Cincinnati.
The event was covered on the podcast ''
My Favorite Murder
''My Favorite Murder'' is a weekly true crime comedy podcast hosted by American comedians Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. The first episode was released in January 2016. The podcast debuted at #25 on the iTunes podcast charts and peaked a ...
'' by
Karen Kilgariff
Karen Kilgariff (born May 11, 1970 in Petaluma, California) is an American writer, comedian, singer, author, actress, television producer, and podcast host. She began her career as a stand up comedian in the early 1990s and later became a televis ...
in
episode 166, released on May 28, 2019.
The Who's return to Cincinnati
On the 40th anniversary of the tragedy in December 2019, Cincinnati television station
WCPO aired the documentary ''The Who: The Night That Changed Rock'' about the incident and its aftermath, which featured interviews from survivors, family members, Daltrey, and Townshend. The documentary and a separate WCPO news broadcast marked the first time that Daltrey and Townshend had ever conducted interviews solely about the Cincinnati disaster.
In 2019, The Who announced plans for a Cincinnati-area performance in April 2020, to be held at the
BB&T Arena at
Northern Kentucky University
Northern Kentucky University is a public university in Highland Heights, Kentucky. It is primarily an undergraduate institution with over 14,000 students; over 12,000 are undergraduate students and nearly 2,000 are graduate students. Northern ...
, although the concert was postponed because of the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
. Pete Townshend said in a documentary which aired on the anniversary of the tragedy, "We need to go back to Cincinnati, you know, we do. As soon as we can. It would be such a joyous occasion for us, and such a healing thing." Townshend also said that he regretted that the band did not stay around to mourn with others at the venue on the night of the tragedy, saying "I'm not forgiving us. We should have stayed."
After 43 years, The Who returned to perform in Cincinnati on May 15, 2022, as a part of their North American "The Who Hits Back" tour, with the event moved from BB&T Arena to
TQL Stadium
TQL Stadium, called West End Stadium during construction, is a soccer-specific stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is the home of FC Cincinnati, a Major League Soccer (MLS) team that had been temporarily playing at Nippert Stadium. The stadium is l ...
.
It was the first time the band has played in Cincinnati since the incident in 1979.
Students from Finneytown High School were booked to play and sing alongside the band for a portion of the concert.
The concert's opening act was Safe Passage, a local band featuring members of the Finneytown High School Class of 1979, and two of its members had attended the Riverfront Coliseum concert.
The families of nine of the victims of the disaster were in attendance.
Prior to the band taking the stage, a video message from
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. The band's lineup consists of founding members Jeff Ament (bass guitar), Stone Gossard (rhythm guitar), Mike McCready (lead guitar), and Eddie Vedder (lead vocals, g ...
singer
Eddie Vedder
Eddie Jerome Vedder (born Edward Louis Severson III; December 23, 1964) is an American singer, musician, and songwriter best known as the lead vocalist and one of four guitarists of the rock band Pearl Jam. He also appeared as a guest vocalist i ...
was broadcast in which he recalled how Daltrey and Townshend had comforted him after a
fatal crowd crush occurred during his band's 2000 set at the
Roskilde Festival
The Roskilde Festival is a Danish music festival held annually south of Roskilde. It is one of the largest music festivals in Europe and the largest in the Nordic countries. It was created in 1971 by two high school students and a promoter. In 1 ...
in
Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark
, establish ...
.
During their performance, The Who incorporated several tributes to Cincinnati and the victims at the 1979 concert. The names and photos of the 11 victims were displayed throughout the concert.
Photographs of the 11 victims of the 1979 disaster appeared on the venue's video screens as Who keyboardist
Loren Gold
Loren Gold is an American keyboardist, vocalist, music director, and songwriter. Gold is the keyboardist and backup vocalist for The Who, and keyboardist/vocalist for the band Chicago. In addition, Loren has been the touring keyboardist and backu ...
performed an 11-minute instrumental introduction to "
Love Reign O'er Me".
The band was accompanied by 10 current Finneytown High students during the concert-ending performance of "
Baba O'Riley".
See also
*
Crowd collapses and crushes
*
List of fatal crowd crushes
This is a list of notable crowd collapses and crushes. Many such accidents are also in the list of accidents and disasters by death toll. (The term "stampede" is often misused in popular media since it refers specifically to panicked flight fro ...
References
External links
WEBN's 2009 retrospective of the eventRaw footage of the event
{{DEFAULTSORT:Who, The, Concert Disaster
1979 disasters in the United States
1979 in music
1979 in Ohio
20th century in Cincinnati
Disasters in Ohio
Human stampedes in the United States
Man-made disasters in the United States
Stadium disasters
The Who concert tours
Concert disasters