tragedy in salt lake city
As with the court cases, negative events can present a negative perception of heavy metal. Likewise, unfortunate events can do the same. Concert deaths from huge crowds, heat exhaustion, and trampling are rare, but they have occurred at heavy metal and rock concerts. On January 25, 1991 at an AC/DC concert, three youths were killed as the result of trampling in a massive pile-up and possibly heat exhaustion. News coverage of this event was also shown in light of negativity towards heavy metal. This tragedy made the front page of the New York Times and so did the negative perception. In the article, the tragedy is of course first described, but so are also other happenings at metal concerts. In page A16, Column I, the events that unfolded are described as not uncommon for a metal concert: "Accounts from the Salt Lake City incident from witnesses paint a hellish picture of this particular concert, but also of many such events." Furthermore, a guard at the concert said that ""people go down" at virtually all heavy metal concerts and are usually passed from hand to hand, like rag dolls, over the heads of the crowd..." Granted, while this may be true, it nevertheless paints a bad picture for heavy metal in general in light tragedy. Similar to the court cases, what perhaps hurt heavy metal most was just simply being associated with this tragedy.
Click on the following link for the article and a full description of the event:
Click on the following link for the article and a full description of the event:
gross_nyt_surge_of_rock_fans_then_death_grief_and_anger.pdf | |
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