Chasing Lightning Bugs Studio Blog

so, we didn't see radiohead last night. we were on the road, only about 1/2 an hour away from home, when our friend andre phoned tell us the stage had collapsed. we weren't sure of the details.....how bad it was, if the show was cancelled etc. tom got online and found this photo. and the news that someone had been killed. we took the next exit and turned around. we had layers of complicated feelings. we were disappointed to miss our show, but more importantly saddened and sobered by the realization that people had been seriously injured and even killed. this wasn't a weather related collapse like so many last summer. it just collapsed. poor design? poor construction? poor materials? how does that happen? 40,000 tickets sold at $62.50 each and something like this happens? it's mind boggling!
but we were safe. and home again in 1/2 an hour, without any inconvenience. back in the day, when my summers meant driving hours and hours to see as many shows as i could afford.... we had no phones. no internet. and when there was internet, it was only accessible at home. we would have arrived at a tangled mess of tens of thousands of people being told to turn around. instead, we had a friend phone us just moments after it happened. and we were texted and facebooked by friends. we were phoned and emailed by ticketmaster to say the show was cancelled and our money refunded. there were message boards and news sites that tom checked as we were driving, to get the details. the change in the past 15 years is huge.
so instead of radiohead, we went to andre's place for a bbq. the boys had guitars. i had the fabric vessel i've been working on. and we had a lovely evening. today we'll spend with my parents for fathers day. we are safe and happy and very fortunate.
this photo shows the stage before the collapse and after