No more Mr. Nice Guy: Remembering the 1980 Alice Cooper riot in Toronto
[A guest post by Greg Korek who was there. – AC]
August 15, 1980 marked Opening Day of the Canadian National Exhibition. The CNE opened on the heels of massive, record-breaking attendance years. In 1978, the CNE hosted 3.6 million visitors, followed by another impressive 3.4 million attendees in 1979.
A mainstay of the CNE was Exhibition Stadium, which presented massive concerts and events featuring the world’s biggest touring acts. During its golden years, Exhibition Stadium could easily have been described as one of the greatest live concert venues in the world. Concerts such as U2’s Zoo TV Tour, David Bowie’s legendary Serious Moonlight Tour, Bruce Springsteen’s media-frenzied Born in the U.S.A. tour, Vince McMahon’s groundbreaking WrestleMania 2, and the Rolling Stones’ Labour Day concerts immediately come to mind.
Back in 1980, however, the first weekend of the CNE paled in comparison to previous years. Poor weather and a generally slower-than-usual start added to the disappointment. To make matters worse, the Exhibition Place concert lineup was not nearly as strong as it had been in recent years.
My office sat just east of the massive Players cigarette sign overlooking the backstage entrance. From that vantage point, every concert night brought a steady stream of limousines carrying the aforementioned stars to their gigs.
With the first CNE weekend behind us, we opened the following Tuesday, August 19, with Alice Cooper headlining and Zon as the opening act.
As usual, the first limo carrying Zon arrived at the stage door around 7:00 p.m., preparing for the 8:00 p.m. performance. Zon played for about 45 minutes while I kept an eye out for the arrival of Alice and company.
Around 9:00 p.m., I found it strange that Alice Cooper’s limo had still not arrived. I assumed they must have brought him in another way. Shortly afterward, I could hear the more than 14,000 concertgoers growing restless as the concert was now running close to a half-hour late.
At approximately 10:00 p.m., the concert promoter came onstage and announced that Alice would not be able to perform that evening. At first, the explanation was that Alice’s luggage had arrived late. Later, another announcement claimed Alice had become ill. Neither explanation went over well with the crowd.
First, bottles began flying toward the stage. The roughly 20 police officers on site could hardly contain the growing rabble. From my viewpoint, the bottle throwing soon escalated into chairs being hurled in every direction as concertgoers scrambled for cover.
I later heard that rioters looted concession stands and trashed washroom facilities. Soon, approximately 200 police officers rushed to the stadium to help quell the mayhem. Police formed a chain in front of the stage while under attack from the enraged crowd, who continued throwing bottles and chairs. Eventually, officers were forced to retreat onto the raised stage itself in search of refuge.
After nearly an hour of rioting inside the stadium, police slowly began to regain control. The hooligans then exited — and headed, of course, straight for the midway, where the turmoil continued.
The mob looted game booths, stormed rides, and eventually gathered at the south end of the CNE grounds along Lakeshore Boulevard, smashing cars and breaking windows.
The excitement finally ended around midnight as the unruly crowd dispersed. In the aftermath of the notorious “Alice Riot,” 20 people were sent to hospital, including five police officers.
Footnote: I have heard numerous times that since that day in 1980, the concert industry as a whole adapted the concept that chairs have to be lashed together to create rows so that a single chair can no longer be used as a projectile.
