By Jane Stevenson, Toronto Sun, 2000/9/19
Pearl Jam feels satisfied after being cleared last Friday of all blame
in the Roskilde Festival tragedy in which nine fans were killed
during the band's June 30 performance.
"That's nice to know," said guitarist Mike McCready yesterday
during an exclusive Canadian newspaper interview with The
Toronto Sun. "I didn't believe we did anything wrong the whole
time, so that's the way it should be. I'm glad it came out that way.
I just wanted to find out the truth of what was going on. We had
an investigator on it and they had their police on it. Whatever, I
just wanted to find out the truth and move on."
The final investigation concluded that "poor emergency response"
at the festival site in Denmark was to blame for fans getting fatally
caught in the crush.
"It was just a bad situation," added McCready, on the line from
his manager's office in Seattle. "It was very rainy and (there were)
different security people than we usually use and it was just awful."
Pearl Jam, devastated by the Roskilde deaths, cancelled the rest of
their European tour. They began the North American leg of their
tour on Aug.3 and play a show at the Air Canada Centre on Oct.5.
WE HAD TO MOVE ON
"I was excited to play again," said McCready of that first night back
on U.S. soil. "It's just like we had to move on and keep going, and
that was the first step, just getting back on stage. Once we got out
there, it was good again."
Pearl Jam are now looking ahead to next Tuesday's release of 25
"bootleg albums" from 25 of the European shows, which will be
released as individual two-CD sets. "Just to offer a bootleg live
representation for a good price," explained McCready of the
unusual release. "Mostly it's just so kids don't have to go out
and spend fifty bucks or thirty bucks on a CD. If they want to
buy a boot, they can get ours for $10.98."
And despite the horror in Roskilde, McCready said the experience
made the group a tighter unit.
"Yeah, it definitely did. It's something that we all went through.
And we've all changed in a way, you know, personally, for
different reasons, I don't know exactly what those are, but
mentally, we're closes, I'd say."
The bottom line, said McCready, about any concert-going
experience is: "Don't hurt yourself, You shouldn't die at a
rock 'n' roll show, no way. It's a celebration of life."
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