Image Source:redutodorock.com
17 years ago today, people died during a mosh pit at a Pearl Jam concert.
June 30, 2000 – Copenhagen, Denmark. Grunge rockers Pearl Jam performed at the Roskilde Festival where their set infamously left 9 people dead. According to Per Johansen, a volunteer security guard at the festival, about 50,000 fans went to see the band play. He said the number of people who attended the set wasn’t special. “It was really crowded, but not dangerous”.
However, within an hour of Pearl Jam’s set, the area directly in front of Johansen turned into a rock & roll hell. The night Pearl Jam performed, the weather was cold and damp – it had rained earlier that evening. People thought it would be fun to do a muddy mosh pit. But sadly, 9 men, ages 17 to 26, suffocated to death in the mosh pit in the middle of Pearl Jam’s death. It became one of the worst concert-related death tolls in rock history, just two short of the tragic stampede at the Who concert in December 1979.
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