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H earing that the city of Athens has a vibrant and inte
gral music scene is not the same as seeing it, hearing
it and being overwhelmed by it. That's what happened
to me on Saturday, April 18, 1998.
I was 18 years old and in my first year at the University
of Georgia. Having lived in town for only about half a year, I
had not yet navigated downtown Athens and its art and live
music scene which was known to me more by reputation than
through experience. I'd been to a few shows once I'd turned
18, sure, and had spent several nights trying to convince dorm
friends to go to the Morton for the fledgling film festival I'd
read about in a strange and scrappy paper called Flagpole that
I'd found discarded on campus, but for the most part if some
thing was going on somewhere, like many students I had no
idea how accessible it was.
Widespread Panic collapsed those miscon
ceptions on that Saturday with what came to
be known as Panic in the Streets, a record-
shattering outdoor concert held in celebration
of the release of the band's first official live
album Light Fuse Get Away.
The group set up stage at the west end of
Washington Street, right in front of the 40
Watt Club where AthFest currently takes place
every summer. The space had been designed
and reworked for large outdoor events prior
to the 1996 Atlanta summer Olympics, but
this was the first time it'd been used for such
a large capacity. Furthermore, the show was
free, which brought a whole lot of people to
town. Conservative estimates put the turn-out
at slightly less than 75,000 people; others say
it's likely there were upwards of 120,000 who
came to Athens just for the show, meaning
that the population of human bodies within
the Clarke County lines more than doubled.
I wasn't even a fan of the band's music.
But I was a fan of spectacle, and seeing the
entirety of downtown overrun by enthusias
tic music fans was magnificent. I was working as a resident
assistant in UGA's dorms, and had to be on duty in case the
hippie hordes overran our facilities, but I was able to break
away every few hours and wander through the madness. West
Washington was a weirder area then, with no refined organic
restaurants or extensively stocked foreign beerhouses. A lot
of what's there now was boarded up, abandoned. Gravel lots
instead of paved outdoor seating. It was all teeming with
revelry, a swarming outdoor party to which the music almost—
almost—seemed secondary. The ebullient crowds were packed
as far back as City Hall, and all the way to Clayton near the
Globe the pot smoke, hacky sacks and awful dancing was thick.
It was my first taste of Athens' relationship with its most
valuable economic and cultural export, and if a little misrep-
resentative (nothing of its scale has happened in the music
scene since), it at least told me that this was a town willing to
set aside normalcy, easy parking and clean smells to celebrate
the art that had brought the town international attention. I
saw that this was a town serious about its music!
LOtiiSHCAi. UCAIBAAE?
Law enforcement authorities freaked out at the idea of an
unknown number of music fans overrunning the town. Though
it's part of their responsibility to prepare for the worst, accord
ing to many the police were overbearing and overeager in their
anticipation of trouble. Gwen O'Looney, Athens' mayor at the
time, remembers the sheriffs office taking advantage of the
situation, having used the Olympics in '96 to justify the pur
chase of "some kind of Darth Vader equipment" for crowd con
trol, she says. "It was never needed and completely foreign to
the kind of feeling we had about the Olympics and the spirit of
the Olympics. He pulled out those uniforms and tried to charge
Widespread for more of the same, which we didn't want and
which weren't needed."
Navigating the space between an apprehensive, at-times
combative and opportunistic government establishment and
the band's management team fell to O'Looney, and everyone
interviewed for this article repeatedly credited her with mak
ing the concert happen. "Despite Gwen's best efforts, the city
really threw up some hurdles for us," says Widespread Panic
bassist Dave Schools. "But I think all the press that that got
did nothing but help us out. Y'know, the mayor of Macon said
something to the effect of 'Athens had better let them put their
show on, 'cause if they don't, they're welcome to come play in
our town for free,' and that got play in a bunch of papers."
The band and its record label at the time, Capricorn, also
had to pay between $50,000 and $70,000 for the concert, as
the city had a "principle" instituted before the Olympics, says
O'Looney, that extraordinary events using city resources would
have to pay their own way—Athens was one of few Georgia
communities not to go into debt after the 1996 Olympics, she
adds.
Of course, UGA's Sanford Stadium held 86,500 people at the
time, so it's not as though the city was unaccustomed to a del
uge of visitors. This time around, though, they wouldn't all be
the known quantity of football fans. And without sold tickets,
nobody really knew how many people to expect. "This was a
new animal," says O'Looney.
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Panic in the Streets took place two months before the very
first AthFest, so Athens had yet to establish a steady tradition
of outdoor music events (the modest and ever-diminishing
Human Rights Festival notwithstanding). The fact is that there
were fewer violent arrests that weekend than on most football
weekends, and nobody interviewed could recall any serious
problems. News reports from the time mention a handful of
druy arrests, and the most serious injury came from an out-of-
towner who fell out of a tree he'd climbed to watch the band.
According to former Downtown Development Authority
executive director Art Jackson (interviewed about this event
by Flagpole’s Ben Emanuel in 2005), "The Widespread folks
said 'We don't have a mean crowd. You know, they don't fight.
They're mellow'. And it turned out, they were mellow. I mean,
this was laid-back... they came in, enjoyed the music, nobody
got mad, no fights, we had no major incidents. Supposedly, the
police said there were—and they never showed a video, they
had video Cameras come in—they had like 36 sex acts that
took place or something [laughs]... but of course, they never
would show it."
Cleanup the next day was a challenge for the city and the
band alike—everyone had underestimated the amount of trash
receptacles necessary, and rubbish covered the streets. It was
so deep and so dense that the tires on all the cleanup vehicles
blew out from driving over so much glass, and special tires had
to be brought in at the last minute.
"It was a very successful show and I remember going down
around 7:30 in the morning the next day, just to look at the
trash, and it was almost all cleaned up," says Panic percussion
ist Sunny Ortiz.
"I wanted to take care of our churches," says O’Looney,
who stayed up the night after the concert, helping with the
cleanup. "I did not want anyone to come to church Sunday
morning and find their environment polluted by what was an
excellent event the night before."
The economic effect on the town's businesses was impres
sive, too, and bartenders who are around now will still occa
sionally recount that night, when a number of bars, stores and
restaurants sold out completely of, well, everything in stock.
COA1A fflfi AO H AtiAltt?
There are five Athens-related acts who
could, with the right promotion—it'd have
to be presented as a special event, not just
any outdoor show—feasibly create a similar
massive event in downtown Athens, drawing
attendees from across the country as Panic
did 10 years ago. It's up to either the acts to
approach the government, or some enterpris
ing elected official or show promoter to take
on the monumental responsibilities.
• Widespread Panic Well, they did it once;
why not again? "We're a little bit older now.
and we don't have a record company to neip
us foot the bill on something like that," says
Ortiz. "But I can't say it'll never happen." The
band has steadily released albums and its fans
are as committed as ever.
• R.E.M. The hometown heroes just released
their most well-received album in more than
a decade, and they've got a long tradition
of involvement in events that'd benefit the community. But
they've also been reluctant for years to perform anything
besides low-key, surprise shows in Athens.
• The B-52s It's been a long time since The B-52s were techni
cally from Athens, but like fellow scene vets R.E.M., the band
has just released a strong new album—recorded mostly here
in Athens—after years away. Why not a momentous outdoor
dance party?
• Neutral Milk Hotel Unlikely, yes, but if Jeff Mangum were
convinced to reunite his iconic band and play a one-off show
in the streets of the town that nurtured his artistic growth
(and subsequent hermitage), you'd have the entire indie-rock
population of this country—and others—convening in Athens.
• Gnarls Barkley Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton—half of the
freaky soul-pop-hip-hop sensation Gnarls Barkley—cut his
teeth in Athens, learning the ins and outs of performance, dee-
jaying and connecting with crowds before moving on and mak
ing it big. The group's popularity is still high after the release
of its second album last month, and marketing a special event
based around that would seem to appeal to many.
Whether or not an event like Panic in the Streets—
documented on the 2002 DVD of the same name—can be
repeated, it was an important moment in the relationship
between Athens as a whole and its music scene.
"I think it's a landmark event," says the former mayor. "The
crowd that came here will never forget that event, and I don't
think that Athens will. I think people were totally amazed, and
proud of how excellently their community had executed this
huge feat.
"It's a bad thing when a community is not willing to take
a risk every once in a while for an industry or a constituency
that is integral to its character."
Chris Hassiotis
The 1998 Panic in the Streets crowd fills West Washington Street and beyond.
NEWS & FEATURES I CALENDAR I MOVIES I A&E I MUSIC I COMICS & ADVICE I CLASSIFIEDS APRIL 16, 2008 • FLAGP0LE.COM 31