Cheap Trick Survives Stage Collapse in Canada

Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick stands in front of the stage that had collapsed from beneath Cheap Trick's concert at the Ottawa Bluesfest.

CSM /Landov

The stage collapsed from beneath Cheap Trick during a concert yesterday at the Ottawa Bluesfest. A severe windstorm struck during the power pop group's set, resulting in the stage to fall apart just after they performed their hit single "I Want You to Want Me."

Photos: Random Notes

No one in the band, crew or audience was seriously hurt, but the accident resulted in several minutes of sustained hysteria at the festival, with many concertgoers running and screaming in panic. You can see for yourself in this video, which captures ten seconds of the collapse and resulting terror. 

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter