The "Disco Demolition" event in Chicago...anyone remember it?

The other night, WTTW was showing a special (it was part of another PBS Pledge Week) about this absolutely amazing event at Comiskey Park that took place 25 years ago.

I was wondering if anyone else remembered it...or was even there. It was just pure mayhem.

way cool.

That's why I went to College in Illinois. I absolutely despise Disco music.

DJ Steve Dahl, who is still on the air every afternoon, was the man behind DD.

It wasn't his first event, he had held similar events in local nightclubs where he destoyed disco records.

I remember one event at the Point East in Glenwood a month before the Comiskey Park incident. You couldn't get within a mile of the place and police from all over the south suburbs were called in to handle the overflow crowd.

Bill Veeck, owner of the Sox, once said of Disco Demolition, "Sometimes these things work too well."

:)

If anything symobolized the rise of the cultural right it would be that monstrosity of an event. All those scared white guys. Terribly sad.

As a Chicagoan, I found it rather embarrassing, really.

Don't remember much about the details though.

--Peter

Idiot Sox fans who bring up how drunk Cubs fans are.

I say "Three words: Disco Demolition Night. I rest my case."

Tuned in to just see the game. Ended up seeing the begining of the end of the disco error, er, era.

As I recall the Chicago DJ was fired afterwards but was promptly hired in Detroit. Is that right?

Steve is still on the air here, and is a Chicago radio icon. There was never any discussion of bringing him up on charge for incitement, because he was already off the field when things went crazy.

He was not fired by WDAI then. He was fired because he refused to play disco records when they changed to that format. He was quickly (like in a couple of days) hired by The Loop. That's where he was when DD took place.

He was fired from that station sometime later (a few years) but that was because some new wanker took over as station manager and he just didn't like Dahl's style.

Once again, off the air for 2 weeks at most, he got another gig, and he's been on since then here in Chicago.

He did, however, come from Detroit, but that was back in around 1977.
The Professor

I guess I remembered him being from Detroit. God, I am feeling old today.

You toasted your brain, or sumpin'.
The Professor

You are probably remembering the incident that got Steve Dahl fired from the Detroit radio station he worked at and enabled him to go to Chicago full time and enact the "Disco Demolition" you saw on television.

Dahl used to be a DJ on WABX in Detroit and during the Iranian hostage crisis he was making prank phone calls to the embassy there. The state dept. asked him to stop, as did his bosses, but you can imagine how that went over, he didn't stop and was eventually fired from the station.

that day. I thought it was a great idea; my contempt for disco at the time was endless.


Now I hear today's garbage and almost (repeat: almost) miss it.

Because of unplayable field conditions. They had 50,000 in the park and turned away at least 10,000 more.

Maybe you were thinking of $.10 beer night in Cleveland?

and could have sworn it was Cleveland, but I'm sure you're right. I remember reading about it in the paper the next day, because I was shocked that my hometown paper (especially back then) would use a headline like this:

DUMBASS PROMOTION COSTS CHISOX GAME

Steve Dahl was the dj behind it.

Well, almost. We went to the game but couldn't get in so we watched events unfold from McCuddy's across the street. It was absolutely CRAZY! People were scaling the outside walls to get in, the street was packed, people toking on joints out in the open!

Didn't live in Chicago, but of course it was all over the national news, and I HATED disco with an extreme passion, so I was there in spirit! :D