Sugarland likely saved by tour manager’s decision

It came down to seconds and one instinctive decision that may have saved the lives of country duo Sugarland and others at the Indiana State Fair where five people died when a stage collapsed.

Tour manager Hellen Rollens looked at the sky and decided to hold the band backstage. A minute later, 60 to 70 mph wind gusts toppled the roof and the metal scaffolding holding lights and other equipment on Saturday night in Indianapolis. It crashed into the audience, killing four instantly and fifth later at a hospital. Dozens were injured, some critically.

When they heard the deafening boom of the stage crashing, Sugarland and crew hit the ground and took cover against a wall, thinking it was going to collapse on top of them. At some point, they made it out of the dust and debris and converged on their tour bus.

“There was no running out anywhere,” Sugarland manager Gail Gellman told The Associated Press on Monday. “No one knew what happened. It was just the moment when your eyes get big.”

Gellman said others felt it was safe to go on stage, but Rollens ultimately acted on her intuition.

“As a tour manager, it’s super important to understand what the weather conditions are when you play outside. We’ve always talked about not putting the band on during wind, lightning or heavy rain,” said Gellman, who was in Las Vegas with another client that night.

“Everybody was standing in a prayer circle getting ready to go onstage, and Hellen, as she was walking down the ramp, the stage fell. So her decision to hold them for literally a minute saved every band member and crew’s life.”

The calamity has deeply touched Sugarland members Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush.

Nettles said in a statement that she watched video of the collapse on the news “in horror” and was “moved by the grief of those families who lost loved ones.” She said she was also “moved by the great heroism” of fans who ran toward the stage to help rescue the injured.

Gellman met up with Nettles on Sunday and has watched her struggle to cope since then.

“There are moments I can see great clarity in her eyes, and there are moments I can see her tears well up so much that I just don’t know what to do,” Gellman said. “She’s just processing and wants to encourage people to be together, to support each other.”

Bush went home to be with his children in Georgia.

Gellman strongly believes it was the weather and not a staging problem that brought down the Indiana State Fair structure. She said it will not dictate how she guides her acts in the future.

“I would pose the same question to every band that goes out there, Keith Urban, Kenny (Chesney). We all tour during the summer. We all play outside. We’re all cognizant and very aware of what we hang and what we do,” she said. “We have restrictions and requirements (from each venue), and we stand by every single one of them.”

Sugarland’s elaborate set for their “Incredible Machine” tour was destroyed in the collapse. They canceled their Sunday show at the Iowa State Fair, but are “hoping and preparing” to perform as scheduled in Albuquerque, N.M., Thursday.

Kinks bassist Pete Quaife dead at 66

Pete Quaife, the original bassist of the Kinks, has died, according to bandmate Ray Davies. Quaife was 66.

Quaife died of kidney failure Wednesday in Herlev, Denmark. He moved to Denmark in 2005 after many years in Canada. He had recently gotten engaged to his partner, Elisabeth.

“I am overwhelmed with emotion- I literally can’t speak- we might never have done any of this without him,” said Kinks guitarist Dave Davies in a statement on his website, davedavies.com. “The Kinks were never really the Kinks without you.”

Peter Alexander Greenlaw Quaife – as he was listed on the back cover of the band’s 1968 masterpiece, “The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society” – was the bassist during the band’s British Invasion height, playing on such hits as “You Really Got Me,” “All Day and All of the Night,” “Tired of Waiting for You,” “A Well-Respected Man” and “Sunny Afternoon.” In John Mendelssohn’s 1985 biography of the band, “The Kinks Kronikles,” producer Shel Talmy called him the most musical of the four-man group.

The Kinks – made up of guitarist/vocalist Ray Davies (the band’s primary songwriter), Ray’s brother Dave and drummer Mick Avory along with Quaife – originally formed in 1961, with Quaife a co-founder. With its hard-driving power chords and distortion, 1964′s “You Really Got Me,” the band’s third single, has been called a forerunner of heavy metal.

But the complicated relationship between the Davies brothers was also a forerunner of that of other angry rock ‘n’ roll  siblings, such as Oasis’ Gallagher brothers, and Quaife briefly left the band in 1966 after being injured in an accident – a period he described as “a good break for me” given the discord. He returned a few months later.

The Kinks had a fallow commercial period in America from about 1966 until 1969 – ironically a period of some of the band’s most notable albums, including 1966′s “Face to Face,” 1967′s “Something Else by the Kinks” and “Village Green Preservation Society.” Quaife left after the release of that album and the single “Days” to join a band called Maple Oak. He was replaced by John Dalton for the next Kinks album, 1969′s “Arthur.”

The Kinks were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, and Quaife played with them at the showcase concert.

Quaife is survived by a daughter, Camilla, from a previous marriage.