Ghost In The Machine: 1981/82

Police inspire rowdiness…

Festival seating and a sell-out crowd at Monday night's Police concert kept security and medical personnel busy until 1am Tuesday morning, resulting in the medical treatment of 45 and the arrest of 15 concertgoers.

The concert also produced mixed reviews among city and campus officials on just how rowdy the fans of the British New Wave band had really been.

At its best, festival seating contributes to the intensity of a concert, something Police drummer Stewart Copeland told the Gazette is harder to generate among American crowds than British. At its worst, such a seating arrangement result in tragedy, such as that which occurred at the Who concert in Cincinatti in 1979.

Four medical emergencies at the concert were related to drug overdoses, according to J. Robert Bailey, Williamsburg Fire Chief, but a dozen cases were a result of "Trampling" as the crowd surged toward stage. In Bailey's estimation, "There were about 1,000 more people on the hall floor than there should have been.'

Six Police fans suffered heat exhaustion when they came out of the hall "wringing wet" and were hit by the cold night air. Bailey said. Four suffered facial laceration when fights broke out and one cut required stitches. Alcohol abuse accounted for the other 14 cases treated on site by the medical team.

"I don't know when we've treated so many people at a concert before," Bailey said.

Williamsburg Chief of Police Larry Vardell also found Monday night's crowd unprecedented. "Never as a concert at William and Mary caused parking to overflow all the way to Marchant's Square," he said.

But what upset Vardell most was that Police fans who drove into town were "not in a rational condition." Some parked "helter, skelter" in the parking lot behind the city post office, causing a fire hazard, others became lost in their search for William and Mary Hall.

One young man from Virginia Beach received some redirection after he was discovered heading south on Henry Street at Court Street. According to Vardell "he was driving just as straight as he could" when he veered into oncoming traffic and hit two cars, causing an estimated $4,000 damage. The hapless fellow was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated.

But at the campus police department, Lt. Mac Hancock seemed satisfied that there were no felony arrests during the concert. Of 15 arrests, six were on misdemeanour charges of possession of marijuana, five men were charged with drinking in public and four were arrested for being drunk in public.

Hancock said most of those arrested were servicemen. None were William and Mary students. In his estimation "the crowd was well-behaved for a concert crowd."

From his vantage point, H. Lester Hooker Jr., director of William and Mary Hall, said the Police was "a very easy concert as far as we were concerned." The sell-out crowd did pose some difficulty in moving around, he said, but the only pushing he observed occurred when fans rushed to be the first on the floor.

(c) Virginia Gazette by Faith Kuhns