Rage Against The Gorge Alternative Concerts Aren’t Worth Problems They Create, Grant County Says
For more than a decade, some of the world’s top musicians have stood on the lip of the Columbia River Gorge and serenaded millions of fans.
But there are signs that rural residents of one of the nation’s most remote major concert arenas are tiring of the crowds and trouble.
It is possible that some Grant County residents are gorged on The Gorge.
“We want to stand up for the people of Grant County and other people who use the facility,” Sheriff William Wiester said earlier this month, when he went to court to try to stop a concert by the alternative rock band Rage Against the Machine.
“I agree with freedom of speech,” Wiester said. “But I don’t agree with alternative events that cause problems.”
For their part, the members of Rage opened their Sept. 12 show by screaming a profanity at police and performing an anti-police song by the rap group NWA.
“So sheriff, you think you can intimidate us?” lead singer Zach de la Rocha said during the show. “There ain’t nothing more frightening than a pig with political aspirations.”
“That just shows you how low they are,” Wiester said.
Wiester assembled law officers from surrounding counties and the Washington State Patrol. More than 80 people were arrested at the concert, most on underage drinking, marijuana smoking and other minor charges.
The riot he warned about did not occur, a fact law officers attributed to their aggressive patrols.
Jeff Trisler of Universal Concerts Inc., which owns The Gorge, said they are mystified by the law enforcement crackdown.
“If you went to a high school football game this weekend and went through everyone’s car you could find 90 kids to arrest as minors in possession (of alcohol),” Trisler said from Seattle.
“It’s not unique to The Gorge,” he said.
But he insisted the crackdown does not threaten business at the amphitheater.
Concerts in the natural bowl began in the 1980s, when a winery owned the site and began booking local musicians to play for a few hundred patrons. They sold bottles of wine that could be consumed by people sitting on blankets during the shows.
As more people began showing up, the owners of the now defunct Champs de Brionne winery began booking bigger acts and improving the facility.
Eventually, concert giant MCA bought the site, changed the name to The Gorge, and made it a regular summer stop for major bands. The Gorge has a capacity of 18,500.
Universal Concerts bought it in 1994 and this year scheduled 25 shows that will draw more than 300,000 people, the 11th consecutive year that attendance rose, Trisler said.
There are lots of outdoor concert venues near big cities. What makes The Gorge unique is that it is some 125 miles west of Spokane, smack in the empty middle of the state amid the sagebrush of Eastern Washington. The closest hamlet is George, with 250 residents.
Grant County, with 64,000 residents and no city bigger than 12,500 people, would not normally be a stop for Rage Against the Machine, Lollapalooza, this summer’s Lilith Fair or Alanis Morissette. The Artist Formerly Known as Prince closes the season on Sept. 27.
The Gorge works as a concert venue because attending a show there is a daylong event, and often an overnight trip as thousands of people stay at an adjacent campground.
“We’re not only providing a concert experience but a getaway experience,” Trisler said.
Wiester had asked a local judge to halt the Rage Against the Machine show, saying he had been warned by law officers in other cities that fans of the band could cause trouble.
The judge denied the request, so Wiester gathered 50 law officers, the largest force ever assembled in the county, to patrol outside the venue. Universal Concerts doubled its private security force to 240.
In the days before the concert, Wiester publicly warned of a looming riot and vowed to jail all lawbreakers. That frustrated officials for Universal Concerts.
“It’s difficult for us to figure out exactly what the motivation is,” Trisler said.
There have been problems at past concerts. More than 7,000 concert-goers were asked to leave the campground after a melee broke out during last year’s Lollapalooza concert. Campers threw rocks and bottles at deputies and firefighters as they tried to extinguish a bonfire.
At the KUBE Summer Jam and Phish shows at the Gorge in August, a 19-year-old man died of a drug overdose, and a 21-year-old man died when he fell from an open car window.
More than 500 people who attended the three days of concerts were arrested and charged with a variety of offenses.
Wiester said 26 people were taken to hospitals with drug overdoses at those shows.
But The Gorge is also a major economic force, contributing more than $400,000 in tax revenue to Grant County last year. The concerts fill up area motels, campgrounds, restaurants and other businesses.
Wiester said county officials are happy to host bands such as The Beach Boys, Bonnie Raitt or Clint Black, that draw mellower crowds.
“But at these alternative shows, the young people are disrespectful or just disobedient of everything, including the police,” Wiester said.
But that hardly seemed the case among the 10,000 people who showed up for Rage. Before the show, many patrons tossed frisbees, ate or strolled through the grass parking lots.
While the crowd was a parental nightmare of odd-colored hair, pierced body parts and unique make-up, the mood was festive, except when discussing the police crackdown.
“All I know is that the Grant County people are nothing but a bunch of hicks who don’t understand what freedom of speech is,” Jeff Lamar, 19, of Seattle told the Columbia Basin Herald newspaper.
The promoters plan to meet with Grant County officials soon to discuss future concerts, but Trisler said he was unsure about the direction of those talks.
Trisler said Universal Concerts does not intend to alter its mix of concerts.
“For every show with Rage Against the Machine and Lollapalooza, we’ve done a Yanni or a Moody Blues,” Trisler said. “Our goal is for every person out there to find something in our lineup they want to attend.”