A Tearful GREAT WHITE, Playing Only With Fog

Sean Daly of The Washington Post reports that "when hair-metal band GREAT WHITE stormed the stage at Springfield's Jaxx concert hall Friday night [September 5], Todd King did not bang his head or pump his fist like the rest of the 200-strong crowd. Instead, the linebacker-size rock fan from Framingham, Mass., stood motionless, his eyes sparkling with tears. The last time King saw GREAT WHITE, nearly seven months ago, the band never made it past the first song.

" 'We have a night to finish,' King said. "That's why we came here. We started something in February that we have to finish tonight.'

"The 33-year-old warehouse supervisor road-tripped some 400 miles to Jaxx with friends Geno Goguen and Michael Magee. All three survived the most horrific rock-show-related tragedy in U.S. history. On Feb. 20, a hundred people were killed and more than 180 were injured when a fire broke out during the initial moments of a GREAT WHITE show at the Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I. The fire, which rapidly engulfed the club, was linked to pyrotechnics devices, called 'gerbs,' that shot sparks into the air and ignited highly flammable soundproofing foam. For King and his friends, going face to face with GREAT WHITE, an L.A. band returning to the East Coast for the first time since the Station fire, made the memories of that night pound harder than ever. 'I remember just pushing and pushing,' said King, who, with his wife, managed to escape the Station via a side exit. 'If you weren't out of that building in under a minute, you were gone,' said Goguen, who was in the bathroom when the blaze started and credits Magee, who grabbed him and pulled him outside, for saving his life. 'In the parking lot, firemen were literally putting people out.' Goguen now sports a brightly colored tattoo on his right arm, featuring wings, a cross, a guitar and the date of the fire." Read more.