"Disco Demolition 2" Asks Fans to Torch Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus CDs
In 1979, the Chicago White Sox hosted Disco Demolition Night, inviting fans to bring disco records to Comiskey Park, then blowing them up on the field between doubleheader games. Saturday, a minor league franchise will destroy a bunch of Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber CDs in an attempt to replicate the zany stunt.
These days, the original Disco Demolition Night is mostly remembered as a disaster. Fans, eager for the 98-cent tickets on offer and a chance to take a stand against the girly-as-heck music that dominated airwaves at the time, arrived in droves and stormed the field after the big explosion. Many of them refused to return to the stands, and, after Chicago police arrived in full riot gear, the White Sox were forced to forfeit game two to the Detroit Tigers.
Nile Rodgers of that one Daft Punk song compared the event to a Nazi book-burning, and Rolling Stone's Dave Marsh pointedly called it a "paranoid fantasy about where the ethnic cleansing of the rock radio could ultimately lead." Gay people like disco! Black people like disco! We like good-old-fashioned electric guitars!
This weekend, Charleston, South Carolina's RiverDogs will attempt to capture the magic again in a game against the Augusta GreenJackets. From the Los Angeles Times:
"Like so many, we have taken special exception to Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus's music along with his numerous run-ins with the law and her controversial performances," RiverDogs General Manager Dave Echols said in a news release. "'Disco Demolition 2' is dedicated to the eradication of their dread musical disease, like the original Disco Demolition attempted to do. We are going to take Bieber and Cyrus's merchandise and memorabilia, put it in a giant box, and blow it to smithereens. It is all in good fun, and we guarantee there won't be a forfeit of a game."
Dopey as they were, at least the rawk-n-rollers behind the original riot had some respectable commercial alternatives. Who is Disco Demolition 2.0 even rooting for? Neon Trees?
[Image via AP]