1988.08.28 - Buckeye Lake Music Center, Newark, USA

Man still critical in concert attack

A man beaten up in the campgrounds adjacent to the Buckeye Lake Music Center last week remains in critical condition, according to a University Hospitals spokesperson.

Edward L. Murray, 20, of Gahanna is in the neuro-surgical unit at the Columbus hospital. His condition has not changed since he was admitted early on the morning of Aug. 28.

Licking County sheriff’s detectives have said a punch was thrown at Murray and then as many as eight to 10 people began to punch the man. Roy A. Silcott, 18, of Columbus, remains in the county jail, charged with felonious assault in connection with the attack.

The incident happenned the day of a concert by hard rock group Aerosmith and Guns ’n Roses. The concert has prompted outcry from residents surrounding the facility, complaining of noise. Sheriff Gerry Billy has termed problems at the site “one of the worst” and has said many officers have refused to work at another one of the shows.

Tom Fitzgerald, president of Buckeye Lake Music Center Inc., said in a press release that management at the facility “is both pleased and dismayed at the number of arrests made at the Aug. 28 concert... Out of a crowd of 18,650, there were 28 arrests made. Certainly not to use as a criteria, but even the Ohio State University football games draw more arrests than this.”

Fitzgerald said in the press release he had no comment on the incident in the campgrounds, saying “the matter is under investigation and charges are pending."

HEAVY HITTERS

AEROSMITH, GUNS N' ROSES TO ROCK BUCKEYE LAKE

Steve Wright
Dispatch Popular Music Critic

Hard-charging rock 'n' roll, from one of the genre's streetwise survivors to that of the wildest of newcomers, will shake the meadows around Buckeye Lake Music Center on Sunday.

Aerosmith and Guns N' Roses will join forces for a killer all-day session of hard, hard rock beginning at 1 p.m.

Aerosmith blended the rhythm and blues of the Rolling Stones with the classic, hard sound of Led Zeppelin to come up with a sound that has influenced nearly every metal band.

Lead singer Steven Tyler is irked by today's young copycats.

"We just finished playing with a few young bands and a couple of guys in them came up to me and said, 'Now my life's complete. I've played on the same bill as Steven Tyler.' " Tyler was on the phone in Maine after playing a sold-out concert the night before.

"When I think of the people I grew up listening to - Roy Orbison and the Stones and all - I
know I was influenced by them, but on stage, I was Steven Tyler. I've been at this so long - 18 years with Aerosmith and seven years before that with bands back to my first year of high school - that people telling me about our influence on them really offends me more than it compliments me."

Tyler didn't mention the trials and tribulations the band has gone through since it started playing New England clubs 18 years ago. Aerosmith weathered a dismal period from 1979 to 1984, when original guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford left the band.

EVEN WHEN Tyler recovered from a motorcycle accident and Perry and Whitford rejoined the band, Aerosmith didn't have a new album to support them or even a recording contract during its Back in the Saddle tour.

The absence of the real Aerosmith during the early '80s meant many fans had forgotten the original American bad-boy rockers.

Done With Mirrors, the band's first studio album released in six years, and featuring all five original members, was not received well in 1985. Aerosmith didn't regain its superstar status until Permanent Vacation was released last August.

Tyler said he always felt the band lacked that one powerful song to push Aerosmith over the top into super-band status.

"WHEN I heard the Permanent Vacation tapes, I knew we had some great stuff," Tyler said. "In the past, we may have had one gem, one memorable song, but this one has six or seven gemstones. No one can predict hit records before an album is out, but I knew we had something great on these studio tapes."

Now on the charts for more than a year, Permanent Vacation has made Aerosmith MTV darlings. The latest singles - Dude (Looks Like A Lady), Angel and Rag Doll - are as scorching as Aerosmith's best material from the '70s.

The Permanent Vacation tour has taken Aerosmith to 43 states and more than 140 concerts. The band has been on the road for almost a year. Tyler said bassist Tom Hamilton, drummer Joey Kramer, Perry, Whitford and himself are getting along much better than they did during the turbulent '70s.

AEROSMITH SCORED album-oriented radio hits such as Dream On, Sweet Emotion, Walk This Way, Back In The Saddle and Come Together in the '70s. Tyler said the band is ready to go for a whole new volume of classic material.

"I can't wait to get back into the studio . . . because we're already working on three or four things that are going to sound great. We're always going to be rockin' and rollin' and pushing our crazy, hardcore fans to the limit. Wait 'til you hear our next album when it comes out around July '89. It will be more heavy, heavy music."

Tyler said Aerosmith has tamed down. Nicknamed the "toxin twins" for their use of drink and drug, Tyler and Perry worked their way through a half- dozen chemical dependency rehabilitation centers and plan to stay clean, according to Tyler.

While Aerosmith is settling into what could be another golden age, the members of its opening act, Guns N' Roses, are carving a reputation for being the consummate hungry, wild young lions of hard rock.

THE QUINTET'S hotel-room trashing, brushes with the law, and dabblings in heavy drink and drugs is well-documented.

An anonymous Geffen Records staffer summed up most people's impression of his label's band when he reportedly said, "Guns N' Roses? Yeah, they'll make it . . . if they live long enough."

The band has lived long enough to see its debut album, Appetite For Destruction, go to No. 1 on the Billboard charts. The LP defied industry odds by remaining on Billboard's Top Pop Album charts more than a year even though few people outside of Los Angeles had ever heard of Guns N' Roses a year ago.

The band even managed to produce a hit single, Welcome To The Jungle. The group is comprised of W. Axl Rose, lead vocals; Slash, lead guitars and backing vocals; Izzy Stradlin, guitars and backing vocals; Duff "Rose" McKagan, bass and backing vocals; and Steve Adler, drums.

Tyler said the great thing about Guns N' Roses "is they don't go for a certain look or reputation or anything. Guns N' Roses just comes out and plays straight ahead, real hard rock 'n' roll - and that's the way it should be."

AEROSMITH, ROSES BRIGHTEN RAINY DAY

Steve Wright
Dispatch Popular Music Critic

The Aerosmith and Guns N' Roses concert Sunday was so loud that everyone who was there will hear it again and again.

Their ears won't stop ringing for a week.

This may sound like a nightmare to those who stayed away from the double- bill of hard rock at the Buckeye Lake Music Center. But more than 20,000 people couldn't think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

They - the ultimate die-hards of central Ohio - sat through a rain that never let up, subjected themselves to screaming vocals and endured ear- splitting power chords. All in the name of rock 'n' roll.

WAS IT worth it? Absolutely!

This concert paired Guns N' Roses, a band that is gaining popularity faster than you can say speed metal, with Aerosmith, a band for the 1970s that has reached the peak of its abilities in the 1980s.

Guns N' Roses played a superquick one-hour, 10-song set. Although it's billed as hard rock, Guns N' Roses material leans more toward thrash, hard core and speed metal.

W. Axl Rose, lead singer and chief sleaze of Guns N' Roses, enhanced live versions of It's So Easy, Nightrain, Sweet Child Of Mine and You're Crazy with a smattering of adjectives unfit for print.

Welcome to the Jungle closed out the Guns N' Roses set and seemed to aptly describe the scene unfolding before the Los Angeles band.

THE MASS of people became a human zoo, surging against the fence separating performers from the crowd.

Guns N' Roses' opening set would have blown most headliners off the stage, but Aerosmith matched it with its own powerhouse show.

Now free of drugs, drink and other hazards of the road, Aerosmith sounded better than ever.

Heart's Done Time, Rag Doll, I'm Down and Permanent Vacation, all from the Permanent Vacation album, were good. But the band didn't really show what a heavyweight it can be until it rolled out the classics from the '70s.

IN AEROSMITH'S second hour, Dream On, Walk This Way, Sweet Emotion and Come Together sounded better live than they did in their debut on vinyl more than 10 years ago.

Of all these classics and other hot numbers such as Back In The Saddle, Walking the Dog and Peter Gunn, Dream On was the gem of the day.

Steven Tyler's vocals against the piercing guitars of Joe Perry and Brad Whitford made it a rock 'n' roll hymn. His soulful keyboard intro to Dream On and blues harp playing on several other songs were a treat.

Tom Hamilton took several well-timed bass solos, and Whitford showed off his blues roots in a roadhouselike solo.

THE ONLY shortcoming of the day was Joey Kramer's drum solo.

Kramer was so wired up that anything he struck with his sticks, including himself, produced a drum beat. But this technical marvel lost its allure when Kramer showed off for five extra minutes.

Aerosmith played for an hour and 45 minutes, leaving the stage after its 20th song. An encore of Dude (Looks Like a Lady) ended a perfect American rock 'n' roll concert that included everything from the recent No. 3-hit Angel to the classic oldies.

PRE-CONCERT FIGHT LEAVES 1 HOSPITALIZED, 1 JAILED

Randall Edwards
Dispatch Staff Reporter

A Columbus man was in custody and a Gahanna man was seriously injured after a brawl before a rock concert Sunday at Buckeye Lake Music Center.

Edward Lee Murray, 20, of 470 Dovewood Dr., Gahanna, was listed in critical condition yesterday with severe head injuries in the neurosurgery intensive care unit at Ohio State University Hospitals in Columbus.

Roy A. Silcott, 18, of 472 E. Whittier St., was in the Licking County Jail yesterday in lieu of $25,000 cash bond. A grand jury is to meet Wednesday to hear evidence in the case, a court official said.

Silcott was one of 43 people arrested at the music center and its campground at Rt. 13 and I-70, said Sgt. Charles Patterson, a Licking County sheriff's detective.

The arrests occurred before or during a concert by two rock groups, Aerosmith and Guns N' Roses. Most of the arrests were for disorderly conduct, assault or drug possession.

Bottles and cans were thrown at deputies who were working to control the crowd, Patterson said.

Murray was injured in a fight that occurred in the campground about 6 a.m., before the concert, which began about 1 p.m., Patterson said. Many concertgoers stay in the campground the night before a show, he said.

Patterson said witnesses told deputies that Murray was camping with six friends.

Silcott and a friend, who were walking through the campground, stopped at Murray's campsite and asked Murray for beer, Patterson said.

Murray told Silcott he did not have beer, Patterson said. "One person called another person a liar, and they started a shoving match," he said.

Silcott left Murray's campsite and returned a few minutes later "with 10 or 15 friends" and a fight started, Patterson said. "When the dust cleared, Murray was left lying on the ground," Patterson said.

Patterson said Murray and his friends had not been drinking when the fight occurred. He said he did not know whether Silcott had been drinking at the time of the fight, although he was drinking when arrested about 5 p.m.

Denny Young, a spokesman for Belkin Productions of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, the concert's promoter, said the two bands have been touring together, but he has not heard of similar problems at earlier concerts.