Concert Tickets: $25...Suicide on Stage? Priceless

[CrimsonTide4]

(10/6/03, 12 p.m. ET) -- The webcast of a concert by Florida band Hell On Earth that was supposed to occur this past Saturday night (October 4), and feature a live suicide, did not happen, according to the Associated Press. The show and suicide were both scheduled to be broadcast on the band's website from two separate, secret locations, but the site was brought down Saturday night by a flood of data from computers in Hong Kong.

Jason Trindade, the operator of a San Diego-based technology company that hosts the site, said, "There's been a huge amount of traffic which causes the server to lock up. We can't handle that." Trindade said that Hell On Earth frontman Billy Tourtelot told him that the concert was postponed, possibly until next weekend. However, Tourtelot told the Associated Press that the concert did in fact happen, and that he was not aware of the webcast problems until after the show. He also did not know whether the suicide occurred.


Police and emergency dispatchers in St. Petersburg had no calls reporting a suicide on Saturday night, for at least four hours following the time when the event was supposed to take place.


Instead of the live broadcast of the performance and suicide, the band's website offered a link to another site, evilnow.com, and a simple message saying, "Next week the show will go on." Both sites were inaccessible for comment as of Sunday afternoon.


The city of St. Petersburg issued an ordinance last week making it illegal to promote a suicide for entertainment or commercial purposes, in order to stop the event from occurring. A local judge also slapped an injunction on Hell On Earth last Thursday (October 2), to keep them from going through with the performance.


The unidentified person who reportedly planned to commit suicide said that he or she would sue anyone who interfered. The person allegedly suffered from a terminal, debilitating illness and had exhausted all medical treatments.