On this day in 1979, disco was demolished! Many interpreted this as the official beginning of the end of disco - but was that really a fair assessment?
The Chicago White Sox had a doubleheader scheduled with the Detroit Tigers on July 12, 1979. Chicago DJ Steve Dahl had been fired from a local radio station that had changed to a disco format. Working on a local rock station, Dahl began a crusade against disco, its fans and all that it represented.
For weeks, Dahl promoted that July 12th would be “Disco Demolition Night” at Comiskey Park. He asked fans to go to the game and bring disco albums with them so they could be destroyed on the field in between the two games.
The White Sox were having a bad season; and even Mike Veeck, promotions director for the White Sox embraced the “Disco Demolition Night” hoping that it would attract additional fans to the game. The night before the promotion, attendance was 15,520. Capacity at Comiskey Park was 44,492. Expecting more fans to show up for the demolition of disco albums, Veeck hired enough security to handle a crowd of 35,000.
The official attendance on the night of the Disco Demolition promotion was 47,795, but officials estimated that there were somewhere between 50,000 and 55,000 in the park. At one point there was an issue with people trying to get in without tickets.
With many fans carrying signs with different versions of the Disco Sucks theme, it was obvious most of the fans were there for the demolition of the disco records and not the actual game.
The first game between the White Sox and the Tigers ended at 8:16pm. At 8:40pm, Steve Dahl came onto the field wearing army fatigues and a helmet. He led the crowd in a chant of “disco sucks.” With the anti-disco frenzy at a peak, Dahl set off explosives, destroying a large box filled with disco albums.
Not long after the explosion, 5,000-7,000 fans stormed onto the field and began climbing up the foul poles, rushing the dugouts, damaging batter’s cages, and setting more disco records on fire. The original explosion tore a hole in the playing field; and MLB officials declared the field unplayable, forcing the White Sox to forfeit the second half of the doubleheader.
Pleas to “please return to your seats” were ignored by the crowd, and a riot broke out. Chicago’s riot police were called in to disperse the crowd. In the end, 39 people were arrested, and reports of injuries ranged from none to over 30.
Steve Dahl was condemned in the mainstream media, but his career as a DJ continued. From a radio perspective, the Disco Demolition promotion was both a huge success and a total disaster.
It has been said that the Disco Demolition Night was the beginning of the end of the disco era. After several years of total domination, disco had run its course. By 1979, many began to see disco as cheezy pop; and the fashion that was part of the disco era was mocked and condemned.
In 1979, the first commercial success of early punk/new wave was reaching mainstream America, and that was the trend that ushered in the dominant trend of new wave/80s music.
I admit that as someone who loves to go out and dance, I enjoyed the disco era and have admitted on the air that I wore the fashions that were popular at the time. But often, when a trend becomes so pervasive that it takes over pop culture in mainstream America, there will be a rejection of that trend. And that’s what happened to disco.
It was time for a change.
The Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in Chicago on this day in 1979 reflected the natural burnout of a music trend, but that night did not cause the death of disco.
Remnants of disco can be heard today with the continued influence of Nile Rodgers of Chic and Giorgio Moroder, who was an early producer of Donna Summers music. Rodgers and Moroder have worked with the recent group Daft Punk, which carries on the tradition of the disco sound.