Pearly Jam

Blame it on the rain

by Jon Garelick

IT'S ONLY ROCK AND ROLL: Pearl Jam's Denmark concert ended in tragedy, but police have cleared the band of any responsibility.

The Pearl Jam concert at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark on June 30 that left nine men dead in a crush to the stage may have given the impression that it was a particularly violent show or an especially turbulent weekend of music. Rumors even circulated that a police report characterized Pearl Jam itself as "morally responsible" for the tragedy for "whipping the crowd into a frenzy."

But at least one eyewitness describes the festival as a whole as unusually calm.

Nina Crowley, director of the anti-censorship watchdog organization Mass Mic (www.massmic.com), distributed an e-mail newsletter on July 20 revealing that she was at the Thursday Nine Inch Nails concert, and that she was standing in the front row for the Friday Pearl Jam concert.

"I was surprised at how consistently calm the audience was," Crowley writes. "Fans seemed to really be there to hear music. In the US I've often felt that some people were there to party more than listen. . . . This was remarkably not the case here."

The Pearl Jam show was plagued by steady rain, reports Crowley, which made the ground treacherously muddy. The situation was made worse by the terrain: a hill that sloped gently toward the stage. Crowley, who was crammed against the barrier at the front of the crowd, writes, "It was extremely packed, hot and steamy, but orderly."

Crowley reports that the security staff worked without headsets, unable to communicate with each other. "People started getting pulled out over my head and all along the barrier. They weren't crowd surfers, but rather just wanted out of the crush. About 25 people came over my head. . . . This was a crowd in which you could take your feet off the ground and be held up. Security worked constantly and very hard [to help get people out]."

Still, Crowley's assessment of her experience is chilling: "If five or six people around me slipped at once, I would not have been able to keep myself up. . . . I suspect that's what happened to those who died. . . . I felt at one point that I was standing on what felt like someone's sweater or bag but couldn't have seen what it was and I'm sure that was the case with those standing on bodies."

After eight or so songs, says Crowley, the band stopped and leader singer Eddie Vedder asked the crowd to step back, to little effect. Before long there was the sound of sirens, and the band left the stage.

Thus far, Danish police have cleared the band of any responsibility in the mishap, and blame the unusual circumstances for the tragedy.