Disco Demolition Night
The Disco Demolition Night was a crashed baseball promotion that took place on July 12, 1979 in Comiskey Park , Chicago . At a double- header game by the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers , the organizer blew up a box of disco albums as the highlight of the event between the two games . Many visitors only came because of the announced demolition and stormed the field after the explosion. The field was badly damaged by the explosion and the subsequent storm, so that the second game had to be canceled and the Detroit Tigers were declared winners.
background
Around 1974 disco music developed from a mixture of funk , Phillysound and Latin American music. George McCrae celebrated his first great success with disco music in 1974 with Rock Your Baby and in 1975 Carl Douglas with Kung Fu Fighting .
A real disco wave was created in the years after 1977 with the film Saturday Night Fever with John Travolta and the music of the Bee Gees . After the little-known rock radio station WKTU-FM switched to disco music in New York, it became one of the most popular stations in the country in 1978. Other rock stations followed suit and switched to disco music.
Among other things, this led to the then 24-year-old rock DJ Steve Dahl being fired from the Chicago-based radio station WDAI. After the Chicago broadcaster WLUP-FM, also known as The Loop after downtown Chicago , stopped him, he founded The Insane Coho Lips , an anti-disco movement. This was part of a larger countermovement called Disco Sucks! expressed her aversion to disco music.
Mike Veeck , son of Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck , wanted to use this countermovement for a promotional event for the baseball game. Inspired by the WLUP-FM anti-disco disc jockey Steve Dahl, who had organized a disco counter-movement and who had already demolished disco albums and singles on a smaller scale in bars, he came up with the idea of blowing up a wooden box with disco records during a break in play.
Course of events
It was planned that anyone attending the game who brought a disco record would be able to watch the game for $ 0.98. The 98 cents stood for the radio station WLUP-FM, which was also called FM98. The organizers expected around 35,000 visitors, around 15,000 more than the usual number of visitors to the games. Instead, more than 60,000 spectators turned up, of which about 20,000 were not admitted. Some of the spectators climbed the walls around the stadium with ladders and ropes to get to the event.
The organizers pulled all the security forces together at the entrances to cope with the crowd. Shortly before the start of the game, the steward managed to lock the gates to the stadium. The folders should also collect the disco records. Many spectators threw the plates from the stands like frisbees during the first game . The collected plates were put into a large wooden box filled with explosives , which stood in the middle of the playing field. The crowd was heated up by Dahl.
“This is now officially the world's largest anti-disco rally! Now listen, we took all the disco records you brought tonight, we got 'em in a giant box, and we're gonna blow' em up reeeeeeal goooood. ”
“This is now officially the largest anti-disco rally in the world! Listen, we have all the disco records that you brought with you tonight, we put them in a huge box and we are going to blow them up really well. "
After Dahl had exploded the box, around 5000 to 7000 spectators stormed the field and demolished it. Due to the explosion and the storm, the square became unplayable. The spectators demolished the facilities of the field such as the batting cage and the lawn . Since most of the security forces were still guarding the stadium gates, there was almost no attempt to prevent the storm.
Reactions
The organizer, Mike Veeck, was heavily criticized for the organization. He left the White Sox in 1980 just before his father sold the team and found no employment in baseball for many years. Many critics found the event racist and homophobic. The musician and producer Nile Rodgers compared the event to the book burning by the Nazis and blamed the Disco Demolition Night for the declining commercial success of the group Chic , which he produced . The Rolling Stone music critic spoke of ethnic cleansing.
The musician and producer of the group KC and the Sunshine Band , Harry Wayne Casey, did not believe in a racist background, but called Steve Dahl an idiot. Dahl himself denied the allegations.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b When Disco sucks!
- ↑ about: The crazy whore lips (Coho: Corner whore)
- ↑ a b Disco Demolition 2 planned
- ↑ a b Disco Demolition Night
- ^ Postcard from Disco Demolition Night
- ^ Burn, Baby, Burn: A look back at Disco Demolition Night .