Crash Worship. Probably the nuttiest band to have already escaped from 2 hemispheres and 2 coasts.

In a nutshell, it's tribal punk, crashing headfirst into carnival and performance art. Although I don't think anyone in the band - or the fans for that matter - really have given it that much thought. They just like to have fun. Usually with a fair amount of beer spray, fireworks lobbed ad hoc, fire breathing, exploding parade floats, viking ship battles within the audience, and the occasional lead percussionist swinging from the rafters over the crowd from a wench. Just to show I'm not kidding - that's the second photo on the left. The first time I saw this group was July 4th 1996. Considering they've been around far longer than that particular date, I was hitting myself that I didn't discover them sooner. For some strange reason, they seem to enjoy coming in all the way from England, New Orleans, and parts of California to play in little old Denver - usually around the holidays. In 1997, they decided to appear on New Year's Eve. That's when my part of the story begins.

Getting ahold of them without the internet would have been a nightmare. Their music publisher is an underground label, the group - as mentioned a second ago - is splintered all over the globe, and even the local theatre owners don't know what to expect from them. The fanbase on the internet was another story. All I had to do was stick my head out into cyberspace and ask "hey, would it be out of place to BURY ALIVE everyone in balloons for this show"? It went much faster from there. From the fanbase to the publisher - then wham - I played phone tag with the band. Two members, no waiting - but always when I was in the shower. Go fig. The idea went well all around because while they had plenty of props, and tons of fireworks in their shows - they seemed a bit of a loss as to how to bury their crowd in latex balloons. They seemed to like the idea, though. A LOT.

Now most people who have seen balloon drops have seen the game-show crap-bag where a few dozen trickle out, usually 9 inches in size. Screw that. These people - needed to be inundated up to their necks. It's the least I could do for a show that got me and my date drenched from wine loaded fire hoses as jets of human propelled flame assualted us while multi-packs of firecrackers were popping off directly under our seats the last time I went. Small was not the word of the day for this project. Nope it would have to be insane for a small theatre, about 400 pounds in weight, say - 50 feet in length, 25 feet in diameter, and would contain around 1400 16 inch balloons. All they needed to do was pick the colors.

The set-up can be done in a day with a minimal crew - but hell, I did this project on my time off from my last job - so I got about 4 stout crew members, and eventually 4 more last-minute draftees, into the fray for 2 nights of prep in the balcony which was totally covered with netting, and eventually - balloons. If the drop was unconventional, the logistics were even more so. The band was extending the stage out to the legal crowd barrier limits, and were putting together large Mardi Gras carnival heads as well as exploding chariots on the main floor. So to keep out of their way, the whole mess had to be created in such a manner that it would never touch the theatre floor - until the cord was pulled. This meant that with the luck and planning from the theatre members of the group we would belay the entire jumbo net from the balcony into position at one go - with dick for mounting hooks or standard rig-points. What we ended up doing was using a small sky light rigged to structural members in the lighting area. Simple? Sure! But only when you consider that the trap door to the lighting catwalks was about 2 feet square. The upshot was what started as a tubenet - turned into a bizzare twist of net resembling the first letter of the second word of the band's name. At least that's what I told them in a "ment to do that" moment.

As you can (will) see, the net dwarfed the complex, as well as the band and the crowd to be. The sucker was equal to at least a 7500-10000 11" inch balloon drop with no place for the balloons to go with an oversold-out crowd of over 2000 people. Meaning - they'd be burried alive in something resembling the acoustical equal of a microwave popcorn dirge - amplified about 1000 times. As you can see from the photos, it did - and they were. That black space on the top of one of the pics isn't from the theatre, it's from a balloon eclipse. There were so many balloons in fact that the heat from the crowd sent at least 100 into the balcony as they rode the convection currents from the lower audience. Big fun, big noise - and one of the largest balloon drops (if not THE largest balloon drop) in Denver for the New Year.

I don't know when I'll get something on this scale going again, but it was fun listening to decorators ask "why are you using 16 inchers", as well as hearing about all the people that were retelling their "burried alive" stories for months after the show. If you were one of the people that got claustrophopbia because of the concert, well - hey - it was one of the most fun concerts in memory. And that's not merely because two of the female crew members who were having a ball taking pictures onstage while being fondled by the audience chanting their names because they were doing war photography - and were well known on the bartender "host circut". Still need to get those photos one of these days....
-mgabrys

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