Sunday, March 09, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

COLUMN: Mike Weatherford

Club fire haunts Strum

Reading about the first, inevitable wrongful death lawsuit filed against the band Great White last week made me wince a little. I figured it would make Slaughter bassist-manager Dana Strum wince a lot.

The Feb. 20 nightclub fire in Rhode Island that killed 98 people might have hit an entertainment reporter differently than it did you.

Sure, I thought of the day the Huntridge theater roof collapsed in 1995, and what would have happened if it had fallen during that night's concert instead of an afternoon sound check.

And I thought of all the casino concerts and shows that use pyrotechnics. Apples and oranges to me. Jay Leno commented recently on "the level of professionalism" of Las Vegas stage crews: "If a show bombs, it's your fault."

But seeing the day-in, day-out repetitiveness of shows here does bring the fire home in a roundabout way. Instead of thinking of it as a horrible fluke, I was overwhelmed by the awful ordinariness of how that night began.

Years ago, a promoter's assistant in Phoenix talked up Great White as genuine, ego-less guys. The kind you go the extra mile to help. I should go backstage and meet them.

"They're stand-up guys who kept toughing it out," Strum agrees.

Slaughter and Great White had a lot of career parallels. Both hit the FM mainstream at the end of the '80s, before grunge slammed the door to their brand of pop hooks and arena-rock riffs.

Both bands soldiered on past their heyday, but Slaughter decided to tour only in the prime summer season. Strum has a video production company here and Blas Elias drums with the Blue Man Group.

Great White chose the road. Any band touring in February -- when fans are tapped from the holidays and northern roads tough to travel -- is one that basically lives on the bus, carving out as many as 300 shows per year.

Strum was putting together his annual "Rock Never Stops" summer tour on the day of the fire. A deal with Great White was on the table. But that was only one reason why "I sat there comatose all night," Strum says, after flipping on the TV "and watching their lives changing forever in front of my eyes."

"Some of the people interviewed outside the club were fans we recognized," he said. Could it have been Slaughter that night? Perhaps, but probably not.

After the fire, "I ran in my mind the movies of how many guys tried to sell us pyro or talk us into it," Strum says. Being self-managed always made the group a little more cautious.

But to tour on that scale, you delegate authority. If Great White singer Jack Russell had a tour manager of some tenure, "he'd have every reason to believe the pyro was tested," Strum says.

"He was going to do a regular show and relied on the people around him. Now he'll never have a regular day in his life again."

Mike Weatherford's entertainment column appears Tuesdays and Sundays.