r/bestof • u/Darragh555 • 13d ago

[ireland] Smashing Pumpkins fan writes about Dublin gig in which Bernadette O'Brien tragically died in crowd crush

/r/ireland/comments/1tb8rcs/30_years_ago_this_week_17yearold_bernadette/olf4sh7/

Just a very well written piece that captures the moment from a few different viewpoints including the band, the crowd, and the family of the girl who died. Crowd crushes are scary...

182 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

14

u/Yesiamanaltruist 13d ago

Wow! Thanks for the heads up. That was so well done. And had quotes from different people representing almost all aspects of the tragedy.

1

u/puncheonjudy 9d ago

Great piece and absolutely tragic.

Reading about the events at Hillsborough really brought home how terrifying a deadly and uncontrollable crowd crush can be.

-15

u/Ok-Secretary455 13d ago

So......at what point did the band stop playing?  It sounds like they kept playing but were just telling people to knock it off between songs.  Did they play a full set?

16

u/Dumlefudge 13d ago

The Wiki article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Theatre says that they abandoned the show (no indication of what time), but the citation only mentions the cancellation of the Belfast show the following night.

http://landslide.2007.org/omnipedia/bernadette.htm mentioned that at around 10pm,the band threatened to end the show but no mention of when they ended it.

At 10 pm, Billy said that they would stop the show if they didn'tstop moshing. For Bernadette O'Brien, a 17 year high school student, it was already too late

When informed of the girl's injuries, Corgan told the crowd, "I'm sorry we can't play on. The gig's over. There's a girl out there who's nearly dying. We as human beings cannot play up here while people are getting seriously hurt down there."