Attending a large-scale outdoor music festival or concert should be a joyous event. In its ideal setting, the music festival is supposed to be a giant gathering of fans who have united to listen to a great line-up of bands perform, have some drinks and share good vibes.
For most international festivals like Coachella, Lollapalooza, Sasquatch and Osheaga, this is usually the case. Sadly, as happened at the Pemberton Music Festival this past weekend in B.C., sometimes things can go very wrong.
Over the years there have been rare cases of big concerts and music festivals taking a disastrous turn into violence, rioting and death. Tragedies occur at the shows that mar the event and end up leaving the memory of the festival in sadness or negativity.
These tragedies have been documented at smaller scale shows like the brutal violence that occurred at the Who's 1979 Cincinnati show, the infamous Guns ‘N Roses and Metallica Montreal riot of '92 and the violent death at the 2006 Family Values tour stop in Atlanta. Due to the sheer size of the audience, however, it seems that tragedies at large music festivals stand out the most.
Following the story of the "suspicious" death of a young festival-goer at the Pemberton Music Festival this past weekend, here's a sad reminder that tragedy has struck massive music festivals since pretty much the beginning.
