0n July 12, 1979, The Chicago White Sox played a home double-header against the Detroit Tigers. Well it was suppose to be a double-header.
Then owner of the White Sox, Bill Veeck, was always doing fun promotions to try to increase attendance at home games. The top Rock and Roll radio station at the time in Chicago, WLUP-FM (The Loop) and their morning jock Steve Dahl were more than happy to come up with one. They called it "Disco Demolition".
Dahl had been fired by a different station in Chicago when they changed their format to Disco and he just wasn't a Disco kind a guy. Also Steve had a following of listeners called the "Insane Coho Lips" which was pretty much an 'Anti-Disco Army'. So the promotion that night was you could get in for 98 cents (The Loop was 97.9 on the FM dial) and a disco record, Dahl was going to blow up the disco records between games. Sounds simple enough.
White Sox officials had hoped for a crowd of 20,000, about 5,000 more than usual. Instead, at least 50,000 people—including tens of thousands of Dahl's adherents—packed the stadium, and thousands more continued to sneak in even after gates were closed. Many of the records were not collected by staff and were thrown like flying discs from the stands. After Dahl blew up the collected records, thousands of fans stormed the field and remained there until dispersed by riot police. The second game was initially postponed, but was forfeited to the Tigers the next day.
There was a crater in the middle of center field.
So 43 years after the disco craze, how may of you who said you hated it then can listen to it today? And how many of you thought it was a great way to get a 'date' for the night?
Then owner of the White Sox, Bill Veeck, was always doing fun promotions to try to increase attendance at home games. The top Rock and Roll radio station at the time in Chicago, WLUP-FM (The Loop) and their morning jock Steve Dahl were more than happy to come up with one. They called it "Disco Demolition".
Dahl had been fired by a different station in Chicago when they changed their format to Disco and he just wasn't a Disco kind a guy. Also Steve had a following of listeners called the "Insane Coho Lips" which was pretty much an 'Anti-Disco Army'. So the promotion that night was you could get in for 98 cents (The Loop was 97.9 on the FM dial) and a disco record, Dahl was going to blow up the disco records between games. Sounds simple enough.
White Sox officials had hoped for a crowd of 20,000, about 5,000 more than usual. Instead, at least 50,000 people—including tens of thousands of Dahl's adherents—packed the stadium, and thousands more continued to sneak in even after gates were closed. Many of the records were not collected by staff and were thrown like flying discs from the stands. After Dahl blew up the collected records, thousands of fans stormed the field and remained there until dispersed by riot police. The second game was initially postponed, but was forfeited to the Tigers the next day.
There was a crater in the middle of center field.
So 43 years after the disco craze, how may of you who said you hated it then can listen to it today? And how many of you thought it was a great way to get a 'date' for the night?
