December 3, 1979, 40 years ago: Disaster strikes a concert by The Who at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati.
From 1964 to 1978, The Who were Roger Daltrey on lead vocals, Pete Townshend on lead guitar and doing most of the songwriting, John Entwistle on bass guitar, and Keith Moon on drums. On September 7, 1978, Moon's substance abuse reached its inevitable conclusion, and he died. He was replaced on drums by Kenney Jones, formerly of another renowned British rock band, The Faces.
Officially, The Who were recognized by The Guinness Book of World Records as the loudest musical act of all time. Unofficially, many people considered them the best rock band in the world, especially in the early 1970s, when Moon was still mostly functional and possibly the greatest drummer rock and roll has ever known, Townshend was writing some of his best work, The Beatles had broken up, The Rolling Stones were believing their hype a little too much, and Led Zeppelin were still a bit too far out there for mainstream American audiences.
The Who were among the first acts to destroy their instruments at the end of a performance, which sometimes looked like a riot onstage. But there had never been a riot at any of their shows.
They had played the Monterey Pop Festival outside San Francisco in 1967, and Woodstock outside New York City in 1969. They hadn't invented the concept of, well, the concept album. Nor had they invented the concept of the "rock opera." But they had written the 1st truly successful opera to incorporate rock and roll music, Tommy, in 1969. And they had played it at the Metropolitan Opera House at New York's Lincoln Center in 1970. So they were immensely talented and widely respected: They had beaten both rock's best and rock's haters at their respective own games.
Their 1979 tour was their 1st without Moon. Jones was healthier, smarter, and very good. But a lot of the camaraderie had been lost with Moon. Still, they were giving it their best, and had already had a sellout stand at Madison Square Garden.
The Riverfront Coliseum had been built in 1975, on the Ohio River, nearly adjacent to Riverfront Stadium, home of baseball's Cincinnati Reds and football's Cincinnati Bengals. The Cincinnati Stingers of the World Hockey Association had played at the Coliseum, but stopped when the league folded and they weren't invited into the National Hockey League. The Coliseum was hosting selected basketball games of the University of Cincinnati, and the Cincinnati Kids of the Major Indoor Soccer League. And it hosted rock concerts.
The Riverfront Coliseum, now named
the Heritage Bank Center
The Who were scheduled to play there on December 3, 1979. At 5:00 PM, a crowd had formed outside the gate for General Admission seating. At 7:15, 45 minutes before the curtain was due to go up, someone thought they'd heard The Who playing. It could have been a sound check. Or, it could have been a section of a documentary film about them that had recently been released, The Kids Are Alright. Whatever it was, some fans were sure that the band was already playing their show.
And the crowd outside the gate surged, and pushed toward the doors. This caused some people to get trampled. Many were crushed against each other and asphyxiated. It was a situation similar to the one that would happen at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England before an FA Cup soccer game 10 years later. There were 11 deaths, and 26 other injuries.
The promoters and the arena operators, desperate to keep the money they were going to make, decided not to tell the band members what had happened. Roger, Pete, John and Kenney played their regular show, not knowing. Only afterward were they told.
This was before the age of social media. News of the similar event that took place at the Astroworld complex in Houston in 2021 swept across the world in minutes. But in 1979, that kind of mechanism for delivering information through mass communication simply wasn't there. Many people didn't even read about it in the newspaper the next morning.
It was only when they saw the network evening news on December 4 that they realized the magnitude of what had happened. The band looked very bad for playing after the tragedy, but that wasn't their fault: They didn't know there was a tragedy. Indeed, of the 18,348 paying ticketholders on the night, most of them weren't in the crowd crush, and they didn't know until the next day, either.
The Who continued their tour. On December 4, at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, Daltrey told the crowd, "We lost a lot of family last night. This show's for them."
The families of the victims filed a class-action lawsuit against the band; the promoters, Electric Factory Concerts; and the City of Cincinnati, operators of the arena. The case was eventually settled out of court, with each of the families of the deceased receiving around $150,000 -- about $604,000 in 2022 money.
The City banned "unassigned festival seating" on December 27. This was reflected in an episode of the CBS sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati, set at a radio station that had, in that fictional version of the world, promoted the concert. The episode, "In Concert," aired on February 4, 1980.
The Who announced their farewell tour in 1982. But in 1989, they went back on tour, this time with Zak Starkey, son of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, on drums. In 2001, with the lineup of Daltrey, Townshend, Entwistle and Starkey, the played The Concert for New York City at Madison Square Garden. It was Entwistle's last performance: He died in his hotel room in Las Vegas, just before their 1st show of a planned 2002 tour. Daltrey and Townshend are still alive, and have occasionally reunited with other musicians making up "The Who."
The Riverfront Coliseum still stands, although it's gone through some name changes. In 1997, it became The Crown; in 1999, the Firstar Center; in 2002, the U.S. Bank Arena; and in 2019, the Heritage Bank Center. It has hosted minor-league hockey, mostly the Cincinnati Cyclones of the ECHL; college and minor-league basketball, indoor soccer, arena football -- and, of course, concerts.
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