During Cheap Trick’s performance at the Ottawa Bluesfest in Ontario, Canada, a sudden windstorm brought down the main stage they were playing on.
According to manager Dave Frey :
“It just blew everything back, cymbals are flying and everything. And we’re just like ‘get off the stage!’ and then I heard the rivets in the truss just starting to pop. BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! BAP! It was like the Titanic or something, and it just started coming down, the roof fell. It hit our truck, which was parked behind the stage and that kept it about five feet off of the deck, and that gave us room to run. We were running as fast as we could.”
As pictures show, fans were panicked by the events. “It was complete pandemonium,” says Frey. “It’s so unbelievable that with everything that happened, with the crowd, tents flying away and debris flying, with everything going on, there were less than a dozen people at the hospital with mostly minor injuries.”
Frey and the members of Cheap Trick survived the ordeal without injury, but their truck driver sustained an injury to his abdomen and a cracked femur, and they lost all of their equipment.
“Everything is gone. The gear is crushed and it’s soaked, and it’s part of an investigation with the police department, the fire department and the Ministry of Labor here,” Frey says. “We’re trying to get gear set up for our show tomorrow in Buffalo. Do you know where we can rent a five-neck guitar?”
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