Disco Demolition Night
Disco Demolition Night was a Major League Baseball promotion on Thursday, July 12, 1979, at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois, that ended in a riot.
At the climax of the event, a crate filled with disco records was blown up on the field between games of the twi-night doubleheader between the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers. Many had come to see the explosion rather than the games and rushed onto the field after the detonation. The playing field was so damaged by the explosion and by the rioters that the White Sox were required to forfeit the second game to the Tigers.
In the late 1970s, dance-oriented disco was the most popular music genre in the United States, particularly after being featured in hit films such as Saturday Night Fever. However, disco sparked a major backlash from rock music fans—an opposition prominent enough that the White Sox, seeking to fill seats at Comiskey Park during a lackluster season, engaged Chicago shock jock and anti-disco campaigner Steve Dahl for the promotion at the July 12 doubleheader. Dahl's sponsoring radio station was WLUP, so admission was discounted to 98 cents for attendees who turned in a disco record; between games, Dahl was to destroy the collected vinyl in an explosion.
White Sox officials had hoped for a crowd of 20,000, about 5,000 more than usual. Instead, at least 50,000—including tens of thousands of Dahl's listeners—packed the stadium, and thousands more continued to sneak in after capacity was reached and 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 by order of American League president Lee MacPhail. Disco Demolition Night preceded, and may have helped precipitate, the decline of disco in late 1979; some scholars and disco artists have debated whether the event was expressive of racism and homophobia. Disco Demolition Night remains well known as one of the most extreme promotions in MLB history.
Background
evolved in the late 1960s in inner-city New York City nightclubs, where disc jockeys played imported dance music. Although its roots were in African-American and Latin American music, and in gay culture, it eventually became mainstream; even white artists better known for more sedate music had disco-influenced hits, such as Barry Manilow's "Copacabana." The release of the hit movie Saturday Night Fever in 1977, whose star and musical performers presented a heterosexual image, helped popularize disco in the United States. As Al Coury, president of RSO Records put it, Saturday Night Fever "took disco out of the closet."Some felt disco was too mechanical; Time magazine deemed it a "diabolical thump-and-shriek." Others hated it for the associated scene, with its emphasis on personal appearance and style of dress. The media emphasized its roots in gay culture. According to historian Gillian Frank, "by the time of the Disco Demolition in Comiskey Park, the media... cultivated a widespread perception that disco was taking over." Performers who cultivated a gay image, such as the Village People, did nothing to efface these perceptions, and fears that rock music would die out increased after disco albums dominated the 21st Grammy Awards in February 1979.
In 1978, WKTU in New York, a low-rated rock station, switched to disco and became the most popular station in the country; this led other stations to try to emulate its success. In Chicago, 24-year-old Steve Dahl was working as a disc jockey for ABC-owned radio station WDAI when he was fired on Christmas Eve 1978 as part of the station's switch from rock to disco. He was hired by rival album-rock station WLUP. Sensing an incipient anti-disco backlash and playing off the publicity surrounding his firing, Dahl created a mock organization, the "Insane Coho Lips", an anti-disco army consisting of his listeners. According to Andy Behrens of ESPN, Dahl and his broadcast partner Garry Meier "organized the Cohos around a simple and surprisingly powerful idea: Disco Sucks."
According to Dahl, in 1979, the Cohos were locked in a war "dedicated to the eradication of the dreaded musical disease known as DISCO." In the weeks leading up to Disco Demolition Night, Dahl promoted a number of anti-disco public events, several of which became unruly. When a nightclub| in Lynwood, Illinois, switched from disco to rock in June, Dahl arrived, as did several thousand Cohos, and the police were called. Later that month, Dahl and several thousand Cohos occupied a teen disco in the Chicago suburbs. At the end of June, Dahl urged his listeners to throw marshmallows at a WDAI promotional van at a shopping mall where a teen disco had been built. The Cohos chased the van and driver and cornered them in a park, though the situation ended without violence. On July 1, a near-riot occurred in Hanover Park, Illinois, when hundreds of Cohos could not enter a sold-out promotional event, and fights broke out. Some 50 police officers were needed to control the situation. When disco star Van McCoy died suddenly on July 6, Dahl marked the occasion by destroying one of his records, "The Hustle", on the air.
Dahl and Meier regularly mocked disco records on the radio. Dahl also recorded his own song, "Do Ya Think I'm Disco?", a parody of Rod Stewart's disco-oriented hit "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?." The song characterized as populated by effeminate men and frigid women. The protagonist, named Tony after Travolta's character in Saturday Night Fever, is unable to attract a woman until he abandons the disco scene, selling his white three-piece suit at a garage sale and melting down his gold chains for a Led Zeppelin belt buckle.
A number of anti-disco incidents took place elsewhere in the first half of 1979, showing that "the Disco Demolition was not an isolated incident or an aberration." In Seattle, hundreds of rock fans attacked a mobile dance floor, while in Portland, Oregon, a disc jockey destroyed a stack of disco records with a chainsaw as thousands cheered. In New York, a rock DJ played Donna Summer's disco hit "Hot Stuff" and received protests from listeners.
Baseball
Since the 1940s, Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck had been noted for using promotions to increase fan interest; he stated "you can draw more people with a losing team plus bread and circuses than with a losing team and a long, still silence." His son, Mike Veeck, was the promotions director for the White Sox in 1979. Mike wrote in a letter to a fan before the season that team management intended to make sure that whether the White Sox won or lost, the fans would have fun.Early in the 1979 season, a game between the White Sox and the visiting Tigers scheduled for Wednesday, May 2, was rained out. Officials rescheduled it as part of a twi-night doubleheader on Thursday, July 12. Already scheduled for the evening of July 12 was a promotion aimed at teenagers, who could purchase tickets at half the regular price.
The White Sox had a "Disco Night" at Comiskey Park in 1977. At a WLUP Promotion Meeting, Schwartz mentioned that the White Sox were looking to do a promotion with the station. The station had already done two successful events at local Chicago-area nightclubs with overflow crowds. When Schwartz mentioned the White Sox were looking for a promotion, Promotion Director Dave Logan suggested it might be time to take Steve Dahl's event to a larger venue. The matter had also been brought up early in the 1979 season when Schwartz told Mike Veeck of Dahl and his plans to blow up a crate of disco records while live on the air from a shopping mall. Dahl was asked if he would be interested in blowing up records at Comiskey Park on July 12. Since the radio frequency of WLUP was 97.9, the promotion for July 12, "Disco Demolition Night" was that anyone who brought a disco record to the ballpark would be admitted for 98 cents. Dahl was to blow up the collected records between games of the doubleheader.
Event
In the weeks before the event, Dahl invited his listeners to bring records they wanted to see destroyed to Comiskey Park. He feared that the promotion would fail to draw people to the ballpark and that he would be humiliated. The previous night's attendance had been 15,520, and Comiskey Park had a capacity of 44,492. The White Sox were not having a good year, and were going into the July 12 doubleheader. The White Sox and WLUP hoped for a crowd of 20,000, and Mike Veeck hired enough security for 35,000.Owner Bill Veeck was concerned the promotion might become a disaster and checked himself out of the hospital, where he had been undergoing tests. His fears were substantiated when he saw the people walking towards the ballpark that afternoon; many carried signs that described disco in profane terms.
The doubleheader sold out, leaving at least 20,000 people outside the ballpark. Some leapt turnstiles, climbed fences, and entered through open windows. The attendance was officially reported as 47,795, though Bill Veeck estimated that there were anywhere from 50,000 to 55,000 in the park—easily the largest crowd of his second stint as White Sox owner. The Chicago Police Department closed off-ramps from the Dan Ryan Expressway near the stadium. Attendees were supposed to deposit their records into a large box, some tall; once the box was overflowing, many people brought their discs to their seats.
The first game was to begin at 6:00 pm CDT, with the second game to follow. Lorelei, a model who did public appearances for WLUP and who was popular in Chicago that summer for her sexually provocative poses in the station's advertisements, threw out the first pitch. As the first game began, Mike Veeck received word that thousands of people were trying to get into the park without tickets and sent his security personnel to the stadium gates to stop them. This left the field unattended, and fans began throwing the uncollected disco LPs and singles from the stands. Tigers designated hitter Rusty Staub remembered that the records would slice through the air, and land sticking out of the ground. He urged teammates to wear batting helmets when playing their positions, "It wasn't just one, it was many. Oh, God almighty, I've never seen anything so dangerous in my life." Attendees also threw firecrackers, empty liquor bottles, and lighters onto the field. The game was stopped several times because of the rain of foreign objects.
Dozens of hand-painted banners with such slogans as "Disco sucks" were hung from the ballpark's seating decks. White Sox broadcaster Harry Caray saw groups of music fans wandering the stands. Others sat intently in their seats, awaiting the explosion. Mike Veeck recalled an odor of marijuana in the grandstand and said of the attendees, "This is the Woodstock they never had." The odor permeated the press box, which Caray and his broadcast partner, Jimmy Piersall, commented on over the air. The crowds outside the stadium also threw records, or gathered them and burned them in bonfires.
Detroit won the first game, 4–1.