On February 20th, 2003, the deadliest rock concert in U.S. history took place at a roadhouse called The Station in West Warwick, Rhode Island. That night, in the few minutes it takes to play a hard-rock standard, the fate of many of the unsuspecting nightclub patrons was determined with awful certainty.
The blaze was ignited when pyrotechnics set off by Great White, a 1980s heavy-metal band, lit flammable polyurethane "egg crate" foam sound insulation on the club's walls. In less than 10 minutes, 96 people were dead and 200 more were injured, many catastrophically. The final death toll topped out, three months later, at the eerily unlikely round number of 100.
John Barylick, a veteran Providence lawyer, who represented families of those who died or were injured in the fire, writes the new book, Killer Show: The Station Nightclub Fire, America's Deadliest Rock Concert - in it he recounts the story of the tragedy and closely examines its causes.
