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News Account of the Concert - Slicer
Dublin Tragedy
1996-05-14


Hello everone,
   The Tragedy at the point has recevied a lot of media attention 
here. This is the first ever death at a gig in Ireland that happened 
insided the venue. Some of my friends were at the show. I couldn't 
get a ticket. They were also dissapointed as they show was brillant 
the sound and visuals were excellent and the crowd sang along to all 
the words. They said it was crazy. When they band came on a lot of 
people left their seats to go into the standing area which means most 
of the 8,500 crowd were packed into the mosh. The crowd was also very 
young. A lot of drunken 15 year olds who were probably at their first 
concert and thought crowd surfing and moshing is cool. Its not! I was 
at Feile in Cork in August '95 and I got a few doc martens in the 
back of the head. A punch in the nuts and they don't come near you 
again. The crush during the Stone Roses was mad aswell. 
   How could it have been adverted? Well SP have drastically 
underestimated their popularity in Ireland. They have better chart 
sucess than in England. An end of year poll of favourite songs done 
every year on the Dave Fanning radio show had BWBW number 1 ahead of 
even U2, Nirvana the Cure etc. So they perhaps should have put on an 
extra show or played a bigger venue. The crowd was also very young. 
12 year olds even. I wasn't allowed to my first concert until I was 
just 17 (prince in Cork '90). Perhaps it's not such a bad idea to 
put a 16 age limit on concerts or a height restriction on who can go 
up front.
   The death reminded me of the Hillsborough disaster in Sheffield 
England in april '89. Liverpool FC were playing Nottingham Forest Fc 
in the FA cup semi-final. A lot of ticket less fans turned up and the 
police designated the larger Liverpool following the end with less 
capacity. Fans were allowed in and a crush began. Police refused to 
listen to fans pleas to open gates and let the overflow out. 96 
people died. They were crushed to death. A result of which all top 
teams must have all seating stadia. Maybe concerts will go the same 
way, seats only.
   For those asking for an address to send messages of condolences to 
the family, there is none. However a national newspaper the Irish 
Times has a web site. It is something like www/irish-times.ie. do a 
search using "Irish-Times" to get the exact address. They might send 
your messages onto the family, I don't know.
  If you ever wondered about the size of the Point check out U2's 
Rattle and Hum and Achtung Baby video. in R&H they perform desire 
their while recording the lp and while the point is unfinished. And 
in AB at the start during the History mix video their is a clip of 
God part II from their new years eve show in 89/90 from the point.
   The following are newspaper reports from The Irish Independant may 
14th 1996 any typos are mine:

GARDAI (irish police) TO INTERVIEW WITNESSES by Don Lavery

Witnesses to the tragic incident at the Point are to be interviewed 
by Gardai in an inquiry which is expected to take up to ten days. "We 
already have taken statements, some of them on Saturday night, and we 
will be interviewing people who were in the area where the incident 
happened" , said Superintendent William O'Donoghue of Store Street 
who is heading the investigation. 
  He said Gardai had a lot of names of people who witnessed the 
incident while the security staff, concert promoters and management 
would also be interviewed. 
  "The point has excellent procedures in place but we don't know what 
went wrong."
  "The Garda inquiry will be to what exactly happened and what 
recommendation we can make to see it will not happen again," said Mr. 
O'Donoghue.
   Asked if the Gardai report will be sent to the Directort of Public 
Prosecutions he replied: "It depends on what is going to emerge from 
the inquiry."
   Mr O'Donoghue said the promoter Denis Desmond had called off the 
concert after the crowd had been asked several times to move back and 
control themselves.
  He expected the City Coroner would hold an inquest into the death. 
A post mortem examination was carried out yesterday morning and Mr 
O'Donoghue said the City Coroner would be given the result and he may 
then release it to the Gardai.
  Mr O'Donoghue appealed to anyone with any useful information to 
contact Store Street Garda Station in Dublin - phone 01-8745415.

FANS TELL OF PANIC SCENES by Alan O'Keeffe
Young concert-goers described yesterday how their Saturday night 
outing to the Point turned into a nightmare.
  Caoimhe McCann (18) of Dalkey spoke with fellow students at the 
institute of Education in Lesson Street of her determination to 
escape from danger at the concert.
  "fifteen of us were holding hands near the front. It was so crowded 
it was hard to stand up. When all the pushing started, I said to may 
friends - 'Lets get the hell out of here! No way are we staying 
here!'" she said.
  "Billy in the band looked really freaked when he told people to go 
home. People were booing until they were told a girl was dying. 
Everyone then were really upset and started looking for their 
friends," she said.
  Aiobheann O'Gorman(17) from Rathgar said: "The crowd was swaying 
out of control. So many were pushing forward. There was just too 
many. We were frantic afterwards looking for friends". 
Susie Buckley(17) also from Ballincollig, said their was an area half 
way down the concert venue which was lined with barriers. "Some of 
the worst crush was behind those barriers" she added.

FAMILY PRIVACY PLEA
  The family of tragic teenager Bernadette O'Brien wanted their 
privacy respected by the media. Fathe David Herlihy, curate of their 
home parish in Shanagarry, said yesterday. 
  About 20 friends and relatives, including her parents Noel and Anne 
Marie and brother Brendan, who had travelled from Cork to Dublin's 
Mater Hospital, attended the removal of Bernadette's remains 
yesterday afternoon.

MINISTER's  WORRY AT DRINK CLAIM
  Sports minister Bernard Allen yesterday urged the Point Depot 
tragedy inquiry to answer claims that children as young as 14 were at 
the concert in a drinking environment writes Dick Cross.
  He said it was clear that any investigtion would have to determine 
if safety and fire regulations or regulations governing buildings and 
crowd control had to be adhered to.
  If it was proven that the Point Depot was not in a position to 
adequately cope with a crowd of 8,000, then the licence should be 
reviewed, the Sports Minister said.
  Speaking on RTE's Radio Cork he said he did not wish to anticipate 
the findings of any investigation.


Other SP news 
They were on Fanning profiled last wednesday and all four gave an 
interview in Amsterdam. I taped it of course.
I've been off the list for a while and I was wondering what is the 
line song inbetween lines in 1979? you know:
"shakedown 1979"
!?!?
"cool kids never have the time"
etc.

sorry this is so long the news reports took a lot.
could anyone please mail me the May 13th Listessa?
They all blanked out when i tried to copy to a folder.
Thanks

slicer.





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