This past Friday night we headlined the Chance Theater in Poughkeepsie, NY again. As we always do, we used our flashpots at the start of the show. This time though, instead of using two we used four.
The ceilings in the place are well over 50 feet high, so we never expected anything to be dangerous. Well...wrong. The four flashes went off, and they looked SPECTACULAR.
Then, during the second song of the set - ironically named "The Burning Times" - my guitarist comes to me and asks if I smelled anything burning. Looking around the stage we saw nothing, so we kept playing.
All of a sudden right near the end of the song, the fire suppression system went off, bathing the band, our equipment, and the entire stage in chemical.
Apparently, sparks from the pots ignited an ancient hemp rope along the back wall. The flames went up the rope and into the vent system, causing pieces of foam to start falling on the stage. Luckily they had the system in place, cause it put the fire out, but unfortunately the brunt of the blast hit our drummer directly in the face.
Troopers to the end...he went out the stage door to dry heave for a few minutes, then returned and we soldiered through the rest of our set on a stage that looked like the last days of Pompei.
It was only afterward that we found out how lucky we were. The vent stage right was the one that caught fire. Had it been the one on stage left, the system couldn't have reached it and we'd have been the new "Great White".
The flashpots have been retired, and we learned a valuable lesson...no matter HOW safe a company tells you their product is, there's always that one in a million chance that something can go wrong.
We were just happy that no one was hurt or worse, and that alot of our fans actually stuck around through the firestorm. We all have to bring a compressor to our studio now and get the chemical out of all our equipment, but that's a small price to pay considering what could have happened.
The video will be up on youtube soon....
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Fortunate indeed Bro, there are so many variables when you use those things indoors, heck James Hetfield turned his forearm into a blow torch by wandering around one of those things on stage.
Pagan likes this. -
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you didnt learn anything from the great white fire
using pyrotechnics in small venues is a disaster
the second you smelled something burning you should have stopped the show and cleared the room
continuing the show is not worth it
glad no one was hurt broPagan likes this. -
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To clarify something...this was not pyro that we were using. It was a simple flash. Ever see those old movies when a photographer would take a photo and they had the powdered flash? Same principle.
Also, Great White used arena sized pyro in a club where the ceiling was a foot over their heads. The ceilings at the Chance are at least 50 feet high, and we've been using these flashes there for years. One in a million happening...but it happened.
Had we known something was on fire we'd certainly have stopped the show. No one in the audience even knew. It was about 30 feet over our heads.
Also...when the extinguishers went off, the fire was out. Our drummer stopped to go outside and heave, so we DID stop. When he came back in the threat was over, so we continued our set.dolphindebby, Fin Fan In Cali, anlgp and 1 other person like this. -
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So glad your all ok pagan.
Now, don't scare us like this again.:no:
Can you post the pics here also?Pagan likes this. -
I hope you played Smoke on the Water when you came back after your interlude.
Pagan and adamprez2003 like this. -
Obviously I'm glad everyone was ok but man those pictures are pretty cool! And I love the Penguin bass, it's sweet as hell.
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Glad you're okay brother.
Another of lifes experiences.Pagan likes this. -
reminds me of an old tale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire
Glad everyone is okPagan likes this. -
Here's another shot of the flashes going off:
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Got some shots from the show...in the midst of all the mess we got some GREAT pix! LOL!
The other singers you see are our old singer from the "Darkest Hour" album, who came up to sing two songs we did from that record, and a woman named Kelli McCloud who sings backup on one song off the new album and came up to sing the song live with us.
dolphindebby and jetssuck like this. -
as alice in chains so succinctly put it "friends don't let friends give each other haircuts"