Killer Show: The Station Nightclub Fire (16 page)

Rob and Donna made it only a short distance toward the front door when searing heat knocked them to the floor. As flames roiled across the ceiling, they heard glass breaking, lightbulbs popping, and nonstop screaming. Rob picked Donna up and told her to cover her face with her hands. Again, they were knocked down by smoke so thick that the only light penetrating it was from flame itself. As they struggled to get up, a man, engulfed in flames, ran into them, knocking both flat. Feeney dragged himself to Donna’s legs, laid his head on her feet, and prepared to die.

John Gibbs and Kevin Dunn had driven Kevin’s beat-up Kia from Attleboro, Massachusetts, to West Warwick earlier that night to see Great White. Kevin had called ahead to reserve a ticket; however, when they arrived at the club at 10:45, the procedure was less formal — they paid cash and got their hands stamped. Gibbs and Dunn made their way through the crowd to the T-shirt table set up in the atrium, but they didn’t have enough money to buy shirts. John turned to Kevin and said, “Let’s get real close to the stage,” so they elbowed their way to the edge of the stage.

When Great White’s pyro ignited the foam, the pair stayed where they were until the band stopped playing and Jack Russell muttered “That’s not good” into his microphone. Then Gibbs and Dunn sought out the nearest exit — the stage door — where multiple black-shirted bouncers turned them and others away, stating the door was “reserved for the band” and physically pushing them toward the front of the club. Gibbs described one as clean-shaven, with black hair — “about 6 foot, ’cause I’m 5'11" ” and wearing a black T-shirt with
“
THE STATION”
on it. He remembers talking with this particular bouncer before Great White went on.

Denied egress through the stage door, Gibbs and Dunn made their way through the smoke into the atrium, holding on to each other’s hands in the dark. Gibbs lost his grip on Dunn and found himself underneath one of the pool tables, where a box of souvenir Tshirts had been placed. He clutched a shirt to his nose and mouth but soon lost consciousness. Gibbs came to outside an atrium window, but does not believe he exited under his own power. He never saw Kevin Dunn again.

Stephanie and Nicole Conant from Medford, Massachusetts, had been to The Station three or four times and seen Great White a dozen times before. The sisters socialized with the band inside the club between 4 and 5 p.m. on the afternoon of their Station appearance and, when questioned by club employees, assured them that they were “with the band.”

When the foam insulation on The Station’s walls caught fire, Nicole and Stephanie were standing down front near the band room and stage door. Familiar with that door from the load-in earlier, the Conants headed for it. “The gentleman that leaned on the side of the stage, who worked for The Station, saw it going up and didn’t seem to do a lot besides just lean there smoking a cigarette,” recalled Stephanie. “Then he finally swung the back door open and we ran out the back door. Behind us was a few of the band members.”

Another individual with unfettered access to the stage door area was John Arpin, a club bouncer of long standing, who occasionally filled in cooking chicken nuggets, jalapeno poppers, and “other Fry-O-Lator food” (his categorization) at The Station when pressed. Arpin stood near Scott Vieira in a similar black T-shirt at the apron of the stage, in the area leading to the stage door, when Great White lit its pyrotechnics. He describes leaving that area as soon as he saw the pyro ignite the foam-covered walls and “plowing through the crowd” to the far opposite end of the club “to get a fire extinguisher from the kitchen.” According to Arpin, when he returned as far as the light and sound board, it was clear that the extinguisher would do no good, so he returned to the kitchen, where he exited through a door known only to staff. Arpin denies that he or any other bouncer refused egress to any patron through the stage door on the night of the fire.

One family that might disagree with Arpin was the Cormiers — Donna, her husband, Bruce, stepson Tim, and stepdaughter Brenda. They had driven
down from Foxboro, Massachusetts; all were excited about the concert, especially after Donna heard Jack Russell interviewed by Dr. Metal on
WHJY
, promising a “monster show” with pyrotechnics.

As the hour for Great White’s concert approached, the Cormiers clustered near the stage, to the right, over by the band exit. Donna watched Jack Russell stretching, hopping up and down, and deep-breathing in the shadows, pumping himself up for a triumphant return to the West Warwick stage. When the band’s fifteen-foot sparklers erupted, it was no surprise to Donna. But when nickel-sized balls of flame appeared on the foam walls behind the sparks, that was a different story.

“Bruce, the wall is on fire,” yelled Donna to her husband over the din.

“They’ll put that right out,” he responded.

“No, the wall is on fire,” Donna insisted. She had never seen anything go up so fast. When Jack Russell splashed his water bottle at it, she thought, “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen.”

Bruce Cormier took two steps to his left and grabbed his son Tim by his collar, literally lifting him off his feet. Donna Cormier turned to Brenda and said, “We’re out of here,” pointing to the nearby stage door. As the family stepped toward the door, a
STATION
T-shirt-clad bouncer with a shaved head told two men in front of them that they could not use the exit. The two men turned back into the club, slipping past the Cormiers in the opposite direction. When the Cormiers reached the door, the same smooth-headed bouncer raised his left arm and said, “You have to use the other exit.” Donna was tempted to stop when her husband bellowed, “You fucking idiot. The place is on fire.” And with that, he shoved his family right into the bouncer, forcing him aside and delivering his loved ones to safety. Once outside, Tim turned and started back up the steps, exclaiming, “My leather jacket!” Donna screamed, “I have your jacket!” and the boy aborted his potentially fatal action.

Band members Mark Kendall and David Filice stood outside the stage door with the Cormiers, having exited only moments before. Their guitars were still strapped on, and both gazed in disbelief as flames engulfed the building. Tim Cormier patted Kendall on the shoulder and remarked, “Nice show, man.” No one laughed.

As luck would have it, another person stood near the band door that night when Dan Biechele ignited Great White’s pyro. Photographer Dan Davidson had stopped at The Station earlier that afternoon to buy a ticket to the Great
White show. By then the club was out of tickets, so Davidson was given a business card with the words “Admit One” written on the back. When he returned to the club around 10 that night he carried a high-resolution digital camera. Davidson had shot concert photos at The Station before and hoped to get marketable pictures once again.

Davidson took four photos in succession, beginning shortly after Jack Russell jumped onstage. In the first, sparks fill the stage, striking the front corner walls of the drummer’s alcove and its lintel above. From left to right in the frame are Al Prudhomme’s shoulder, Scott Vieira’s back, Kelly Vieira’s back, the leather-jacketed back of club regular and occasional bouncer Mario Giamei, and — at center frame — John Arpin, his shaved head turned to the right as he watches Dan Biechele touching off the pyro from offstage. Biechele’s hair is just visible to the right of a wooden pillar. Vieira and Arpin each wear black Tshirts with
EVENT SECURITY or EVENT STAFF
stenciled on their backs.

The second Davidson photo was snapped just after the fifteen-second gerbs stopped showering sparks. From left to right appear Kelly Vieira’s shoulder, Mark Kendall onstage, then the backs of Scott Vieira and Mario Giamei. All but Kendall are facing the drummer’s alcove, the corner walls of which are engulfed in two-foot-high flames. At the frame’s right edge, Dan Biechele’s hair can be seen, as well as the foam-covered surface of the closed inner stage door.

In the third photo, Dan Biechele stands at center stage with a flashlight clenched in his teeth, staring up at the flames, which now roar up the alcove walls, ten feet up the proscenium arch. At the photo’s left edge, Al Prudhomme’s cowboy hat and sports jersey are visible. Kelly Vieira is no longer in the frame.

In the fourth photo, flames rage from floor to ceiling on the stage. Donna Cormier’s hand appears in the lower left, pointing toward the stage exit. The head of Ty Longley’s guitar can be seen onstage, and drummer Eric Powers stands at center stage staring back at the engulfed alcove he has just escaped. Behind him, David Filice bends to drag his amplifier away from the flames. Dan Biechele, sunglasses on head and flashlight in hand, heads offstage, toward the camera. A blonde female, possibly one of the Conant sisters, walks behind a wooden pillar on her way out the stage door, just ahead of the band. She passes by the outstretched left arm of dark-haired Scott Vieira who stands in the path to the stage door with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. The inward-swinging stage door has been opened for the blonde-haired woman. In the foreground sits a cardboard box that had accompanied Great White
from Glendale Heights, Illinois, to West Warwick, Rhode Island, with many stops in between. It bears a bright orange label reading,
EXPLOSIVE
.

Nine days after the fire, Donna Cormier reviewed the Davidson photographs with the Rhode Island State Police. She positively identified John Arpin as the shaved-headed bouncer who had tried to turn her family away from the stage door.

According to the Rhode Island Department of the Attorney General, twenty-four people got out through the stage door exit, all without injury. Only four of them had actually been onstage at the time of the fire. Counting persons associated with Great White, Fathead, Trip, and the club itself (including the Conant sisters in this group), there were a total of twelve “with the band.” Since four of the remaining twelve persons were the Cormier family (whom a bouncer tried to deny egress), only eight other “civilians” passed through the stage door in the full minute between pyro ignition and complete closure of the exit due to fire. Clearly, others were denied its use.

At least one person
chose
not to use the stage exit, however — even though he had used it all night. Ty Longley, Great White’s rhythm guitarist, did not head offstage to the adjacent door with his bandmates. Rather, when Longley spotted his friend Bill Long (Trip’s road manager) in the center of the club, he jumped off the stage and ran to him, saying, “C’mon, let’s get out of here, bro.” Long and Longley made their way through the heat and smoke toward the atrium, that curious vestige of ’70s architecture along the club’s front wall, which featured curved Plexiglas panels arching from ceiling to floor along its entire length. The atrium deceptively suggested a possible escape route for panicked patrons; however, its “windows” were actually impenetrable save for three low glass (rather than Plexiglas) panels at widely separated locations. The Derderians had pushed three pool tables up against the windows, in order to garner more standing-room space. The result was a billiard barricade that kept victims from the few breakable panels.