Radiohead Toronto show canceled after fatal stage collapse
TORONTO (Reuters) – A concert by the British rock band Radiohead was canceled after a section of the stage collapsed during sound checks and rehearsals before the show on Saturday, killing one person and injuring three others, police said.
The band was not on stage at the time, police said, and members of the group were not believed to have been involved in the accident, which occurred at about 4 p.m. local time at Downsview Park, about 5 miles north of downtown Toronto.
A Canadian musician named Dan Snaith, who performs under the name Caribou, had been set to open for Radiohead on Saturday, according to his website, but there was no word on whether he was on stage when the mishap occurred.
Representatives for the concert’s promotion company, Live Nation, were not immediately available for comment. Downsview Park officials had no comment on the incident except to confirm that the Radiohead concert had been canceled as a result.
Toronto police spokesman Sergeant Tim Burrows told Reuters that about 20 people were in the direct vicinity of the stage, conducting rehearsals and sound checks, when it gave way.
A police statement issued on Twitter said one man in his 30s was pronounced dead at the scene and a 45-year-old man was taken to a local hospital with a non-life-threatening head injury. It said two other males suffered less serious injuries.
Burrows said investigators were still unsure what caused the mishap.
Pictures of the scene posted on social media sites showed a large section of metal scaffolding over and around the stage that had collapsed in the middle of the concert platform.
Radiohead, an alternative rock group led by singer Thom Yorke and famed for such hits as “Creep” and “Paranoid Android,” is on an international tour this summer.
Their 1997 album “OK Computer” established the band as one of the top musical acts of the decade. The group made waves with its 2007 collection “In Rainbows,” which the band ambitiously released first as a digital download while allowing customers to set their own price for it.
(Reporting by Frank McGurty in Toronto and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Anthony Boadle)
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