Former Pantera Guitarist Killed on Stage
By JAY COHEN, Associated Press Writer
COLUMBUS, Ohio - A gunman charged onstage at a packed nightclub and opened fire on the band and crowd, killing top heavy metal guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott and three other people before a police officer shot him to death, authorities and witnesses said.
full story:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=2&u=/ap/20041209/ap_on_re_us/nightclub_shooting
That’s sick. But I have to say, I’m surprised that type of thing hasn’t happened more often at concerts and sporting events.
Will O’Ban
Time Warner renamed him “Diamond” Darrell for their CDs. “Dimebag” was much more appropriate I think.
Terrible affair.
Mind you I’ve died a few times meself on various stages…,
Slan,
D. :roll:
I was once playing guitar in a blues club in Melbourne when a guy pulled a handgun and fired a couple of shots. He didn’t hurt anybody, fortunately.
Somehow the bouncers managed to evict him without injury to themselves or him—maybe he made a run for it. Anyway, he could be heard departing firing the occasional shot as he went off down the street. Very scarey. I have no idea whether or not the police apprehended him; the club didn’t have a great reputation and I’m not sure they’d have taken a report seriously.
I thought guns were outlawed down under.
People who carry guns into Clubs are not usually worried about the legality of it all!
Slan,
D.
Hey…the guy was only exercising his 2nd Amendment rights, right?
Jay
We don’t have amendments down here. That’s why our wonderful leader does what he wants to, when he wants to. If we the public try to do the same, he introduces a ‘levy’ on the activity.
DavidG
Sound familiar to any of you people from the states?
Will O’Ban
R.I.P. Dimebag. He will be sadly missed. \m/
Bummer.
Ole D. Darrell was a fine guitar player.
Heavy metal is too easy a target for stereotyping and p*ss-taking. Some of those guys can play so well I could almost shoot them myself out of jealousy (poor-taste joke).
Dimebag, Jerry Cantrell and some of the other metal/grunge gitboxers revived my interest in playing guitar after the 80s depressed me so much that I stowed my SG in a cupboard.
Pantera were great, and Darrell was a real virtuoso. Respec’.
I live about 5 miles from the club where this happened. I’ve never been in there, but I’ve driven by it often. I’m not too surprised that this happened. It sucks of course, but back in my younger years I went to plenty of metal shows, and while every secial event has a certain percentage of freaks, those shows had a much higher percentage.
I agree with Buddhu that Pantera were pretty talented. It’s very sad to lose a musician and a group of audience members regardless of talent.
I honestly don’t think the heavy metal connection is really all that pertinent. I’ve made most of my living getting up on stage to play or lecture since my mid teens. I’m aware whenever I reflect on it that there is a danger that someone will run amok on each occasion I do it. Despite my earlier story of a club shooting, I’ve heard more horror stories from universities than the music world. By that I mean teachers stalked and harrassed, death threats, students opening fire in class, students setting fire to themselves on down to less harrowing but still disturbing occurrences. If these haven’t happened in my classes, they’ve happened at places I’ve taught and to people I know. As a teacher, you quickly learn that in every hundred students there are several nutters some of whom are dangerous. Obviously you can’t do your job if you think about that constantly while you are doing it but you need to be a bit careful and to take precautions. I don’t regard gigging as more dangerous than lecturing—both have an emotional dimension that can have an unpreditable effect on someone who is seriously disturbed.
Dimebag was shot several times close range by Nathan Gale.
A clip from the Pantera.com website:
People who had known the 25-year-old Gale in his hometown of Marysville described him yesterday as an unstable man who once asserted that the Abbott brothers’ former band, PANTERA, had stolen his song lyrics.
How many metal shows have you been to? At pretty much EVERY one I’ve been to, there are mosh pits galore (yes, I was in them), and there are always dudes that are right on the brink of figthing (or just plain fighting). Until I see a mosh pit during your lecture series or at a classical guitar recital, I will continue to believe there’s a connection between metal and violence.
I think you need to get a few facts straight. I don’t, and never have, played classical guitar. I’ve played in rock and blues bands in stadiums in front of thousands of people and in very rough clubs and bars. I’ve seen plenty of blood spilt in clubs and bars while I was playing. I’ve seen half the dance floor erupt in a brawl. Anybody who’s gigged widely in tough places will have had similar experiences. I’ve been physically attacked on several occasions. (I mentioned a shooting incident earlier in this thread that I and the others survived.)
The most dangerous and frightening affairs weren’t the brawls, which were just like indoor streetfights, but the case of the isolated nutter. For me that was one guy pulling and firing a gun in a club. And that is exactly what happened in the incident that gave rise to this thread. There have been deaths at Rolling Stones gigs. They aren’t a heavy metal band. John Lennon didn’t play heavy metal.
I don’t pretend that group violence isn’t a worry; of course it is. But it’s been going on at dance venues for as long as there are records; it has nothing to do with heavy metal as such. Cajun bands used to play in chicken wire cages for protection, a fact that gave rise to one of the jokes in the Blues Brothers movies. Have a look into the records for violence in South and Westside Chicago blues joints. Look into the records of Southern juke joints and honky tonks. I could go on and on.
In universities the trouble isn’t with riots but, again, with isolated nutters who think that someone is messing with their mind. Contrary to what you seem to think, universities aren’t genteel salons where people sip herbal tea and engage in idle chit chat. They are, for a lot of students, intense pressure cookers where they are having their fundamental beliefs challenged, learning to sink or swim in a world where, for teh first time, nobody will force them to work, trying to meet their own and their parents expectations and confronting the the reality that current success or failure establishes a life trajectory. Most students cope with the pressures reasonably well. An alarmingly high number break down, far too many suicide, some choose to take a few others with them when they go. Again, it’s not the riot I fear, it’s the isolated student you didn’t even know had a problem until it’s too late.
I never said you did. I was just using that as an example of a public performance.
[Violence] been going on at dance venues for as long as there are records; it has nothing to do with heavy metal as such.
Are you saying that it’s dancing, and not music, that leads to the violence? I might agree with you there.
Contrary to what you seem to think, universities aren’t genteel salons where people sip herbal tea and engage in idle chit chat.
Huh?! When did I give that impression? And since when were we talking about college students anyway? I never mentioned college, and I don’t recall any news articles about this mentioning college.
No you weren’t. You used the example as part of a sarcastic and ill-informed attempt to show that I have little understanding of youth culture.
No of course I’m not saying that.
First, I was making the point that, from the point of view of someone who’s seen this stuff as a performer, what frightens me most is not the occasional group violence but the acts of isolated nutters. This killing was the act of an isolated nutter. So was Lennon’s.
Second, if you do want to talk about group violence, and clearly you do, I think you are just wrong to think that heavy metal is any different from the countless other styles of entertainment that spawned similar violence. I don’t have a full account of what makes group violence at a gig likely, although I can sure tell you that you know on stage when it is about to happen. But I can say this. It has always happened at venues of public entertainment where poor people unwind, get drunk, and vent their frustrations, hence my mention of cajun dances, blues clubs and honky tonks. Age, race and preferred style of music have nothing specifically to do with it although, the less downtrodden and frustrated the audience, the younger it seems to have to be for violence to be likely. Also, since the invention of the teenager in the 1950s, it has happened wherever groups of teenagers congregate to listen to inhibition-dulling and testosterone stimulating music or to assert tribal indentities (eg, football matches in Europe and Britain). The early rockers tore up theatres. In England rockers fought running battles with mods. In Australia rockers fought with jazzers. Then mods fought with sharpies. Skinheads fought with just about everyone. The Specials wrote a tune called Ghost Town complaining about violence at gigs. They do not play heavy metal. Sure I’ve seen mosh pits up close. They carry on the tradition. But they didn’t start the tradition.
You mentioned mosh pits in my lectures. If not in college, where did you think I was lecturing? In Times Square? You were commenting on a post of mine in which I mentioned that fear of isolated nutters is something anyone who performs in public is sort of aware of. Just in case the relevance was lost on you the first time around, recently a student pulled a gun in a tutorial on the floor below where I used to teach a few years back, shooting the tutor and a couple of his fellow students. Does this sound vaguely reminiscent of the shooting we are discussing on this thread? Would it have been more likely if tutorial rooms had mosh pits?
You used the example as part of a sarcastic and ill-informed attempt to show that I have little understanding of youth culture.
I think you’re seeing personal attacks where none exist. I don’t mean any of this to be personal. I’m just discussing the causes of violence with a fellow human being. I don’t know how old you are, how in-touch you are with the youth of today, where you speak, or anything else about you.
what frightens me most is not the occasional group violence but the acts of isolated nutters.
Yes, and I understand that. I thought we were talking about whether violence is more common at heavy metal shows or not.
I think you are just wrong to think that heavy metal is any different from the countless other styles of entertainment that spawned similar violence.
Aha, here’s the key. You’re right, heavy metal is no different from other entertainment THAT SPAWNED SIMILAR VIOLENCE. My question then is what is the common factor in all of those violent incidences. Music? Young people? Alcohol? I’d say all three are to blame. Young people are stupid, music gets people excited (energetic), and alcohol gives them excuses to behave poorly. But now let’s look at the types of events that have all three ingredients. Hmm…heavy metal concerts are certainly on that list. They’re not the ONLY events on that list of course, as you pointed out earlier, but it’s undeniable that heavy metal concerts have these three ingredients.
Also, since the invention of the teenager in the 1950s, it has happened wherever groups of teenagers congregate to listen to inhibition-dulling and testosterone stimulating music or to assert tribal indentities (eg, football matches in Europe and Britain).
Now this I completely agree with! I like your choice of words too: “the invention of the teenager.” That’s a good way to describe it.
The early rockers tore up theatres. In England rockers fought running battles with mods. In Australia rockers fought with jazzers. Then mods fought with sharpies. Skinheads fought with just about everyone. The Specials wrote a tune called Ghost Town complaining about violence at gigs. They do not play heavy metal. Sure I’ve seen mosh pits up close. They carry on the tradition. But they didn’t start the tradition.
You mentioned mosh pits in my lectures. If not in college, where did you think I was lecturing? In Times Square? You were commenting on a post of mine in which I mentioned that fear of isolated nutters is something anyone who performs in public is sort of aware of. Just in case the relevance was lost on you the first time around, recently a student pulled a gun in a tutorial on the floor below where I used to teach a few years back, shooting the tutor and a couple of his fellow students. Does this sound vaguely reminiscent of the shooting we are discussing on this thread? Would it have been more likely if tutorial rooms had mosh pits?[/quote]