Canadian music festival turns deadly

Posted 4 months ago

Artist:
- PLAY
Billy Currington

I knew something bad had happened when I opened my email this morning and there were 32 messages in my inbox. I was right, something bad had happened.

A massive storm blew through the Big Valley Jamboree in Camrose, Alberta, Canada last night causing the stage to collapse, killing one and injuring, by some reports, up to 75. This was the same stage that Billy Currington had just been singing on.

I was in the process of writing about this story when I got an email from Dave who is a DJ at Today's Country-CISN 103.9 in Edmonton. He did such a great job of describing what happened, I decided to use his account. Thank you Dave. You can also see a short video of the aftermath here.

Hello again. You may have heard the news already, but we had a tragedy strike at Big Valley Jamboree in Camrose, Alberta about 50 minutes SE of Edmonton. At about 6pm last night, a massive Thunderstorm hit suddenly, with huge gusts of wind, the stage was in the process of being evacuated and the concert being shut down, when the stage collapsed. This is a massive stage, with lights, a jumbotron and a set of bleachers suspended above the stage for fans on each side of the stage. 1 person is confirmed dead, 2 more are in critical condition and many, many more were injured by the falling debris. Billy Currington was on stage at the time, and he did receive some minor injuries as well. It's an extremely tough day around our station, our listeners are like family and this is the biggest event of the year in our province for country music.

I just wrapped up my own show, and I walked past the stage, into a tent beside the stage for dinner. I knew that a storm was coming, but all of a sudden people start running into the tent or just to find shelter, next the tent started shaking violently and people were panicking, lights were falling and the large polls holding it up in the centre were bending the wind was so strong. I started hearing people say the stage had collapsed. I ran out to see if I could help and to check on our staff still in the concert bowl. I couldn't believe how this stage where Billy Currington was singing good directions on just 5 minutes earlier was nothing more than a heap of twisted metal. Chairs were thrown around, children were running around crying, people had left personal belongings like purses and bags beside their chairs as they ran for shelter. Our tent the radio station was broadcasting from and doing a promotion in was completely collapsed, everything we had was totally the fence behind was collapsed. It was complete mayhem, something I will never forget and something I never want to see again.

Today Tim Mcgraw, Tracy Lawrence and Canadian group Doc Walker were scheduled to perform, that has obviously had to been cancel as the cleanup continues.

One of Billy's band members was also injured severely in the mayhem. From a piece in my inbox I received...

A Billy Currington band member was assisted from the wreckage. His bloodied arm was badly injured. His band was playing when the stage went down.
Vancouver-based country music singer Jessie Ferrel said it was a terrifying experience.
"It felt like bombs were going off around us in this concrete and steel building. Huge hits of power hitting the building, and then the lights were off," she told CTV News.
"People were missing and trying to find each other and there was a woman who was trying to tell everyone to stop panicking and she was panicking on the speakers."
Justin Bell, a freelance writer covering the festival for Sun Media, watched the storm hit.
"It was calm and eerie for about 20 seconds then people began running," said Bell.
The Big Valley Jamboree Web site said Kevin Costner and his band Modern West was next on the lineup to perform when the storm hit

My heart goes out to everyone who was there. So sad when all you're trying to do is enjoy a little country music and to have this happen. But I must say that it sounds like it could have been a whole lot worse than it was so I guess we have to be grateful for small miracles.