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Cheap Trick Cancel Show Over Staging Concerns, Black Keys Enter Saga

August 1st 2011 3:25PM


Andy Lyons, Getty Images

Cheap Trick wants you to want them -- but not if it means they have to perform on the same stage as their disastrous July 17 Ottawa Bluesfest show, a gig that saw the stage collapse around them mid-set.

Earlier this morning (Aug. 1) on their website, Cheap Trick announced they're cancelling their Sept. 1 show at Vancouver's Pacific National Exhibition because the company providing the staging in Vancouver, Mega-Stage (Groupe Berger), is the same company that handled things at Bluesfest.

"All potential alternatives have been explored by the band and promoter and were exhausted, leaving Cheap Trick with no other option than to cancel their September 1st engagement at the PNE," the band said in a statement. "Unless current investigations prove otherwise, the band will not, as a matter of principle, but more importantly, as a matter of safety, appear on a Berger stage in the future."

Tickets for the concert will be refunded at all points of purchase.

Watch Footage of the Ottawa Bluesfest Stage Collapsing

In related news, Billboard.biz reports that the Black Keys may have been the first band to raise concerns about the Mega-Stage set-up when they played the stage in question for a gig nearly ten days before the incident in Ottawa.

According to "sources," the duo's management noticed a flapping wind panel and requested it be repaired. When stage crew didn't fix the panel, Black Keys' management pulled the group from the stage until it was fixed. This latest news doesn't bode well for Mega-Stage and the crew on hand at Bluesfest considering the account given to Billboard by one of the roadies working the fest in Ottawa.

"The windwall on stage
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Filed under: Concerts and ToursNewsHoly Hell
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