Word: crowds
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Last week, playing a concert date in Cincinnati during the first week of an 18-day blitz of the East and Midwest, The Who found itself performing after a crowd stampede that killed eleven people. The tragedy took place outside Riverfront Coliseum as thousands of kids holding unreserved seats charged across a concrete plaza toward two unlocked entrances. The group had not yet come onstage. "If it had happened inside," said Townshend, "I would never have played again." The musicians could not be blamed and, indeed, did not learn what had happened until after the concert. They were shattered...
Though the music was not billed to being until 8 p.m., the crowd started building outside the coliseum around 1 o'clock Monday afternoon. By 3, the police had arrived to keep watch. With so long to wait, the kids tried to keep a party mood going. There was some drinking, some grass...
...early evening there were 8,000 people, most holding general admission tickets, massed in the coliseum plaza near the west gate. By 7, the doors had still not been opened. The crowd, past patience, pressed closer together. Danny and Connie Burns were among them...
Lieut. Dale Menkhaus, detailed to head a squad of 25 Cincinnati police on crowd-control assignment, sensed danger. He went looking for someone to open the doors. He found one of the promoters, Cal Levy, who told him this was not possible. The musicians had not completed their rehearsal inside the hall, and not enough ticket takers had arrived...
...crowd, now clotted tightly together, pressed forward. Around 7:20, someone smashed through a closed glass door and crawled through the shards into the hall. Finally, the doors of the west gate opened. The crowd surged. Danny Burns was carried with them. He could not see his wife...