Remembering Our Rock & Roll Family Affected by The Station Nightclub Fire

Thursday, February 20th, 2003 will forever be remembered as the date of the most horrible catastrophe in the history of rock ’n’ roll. Living only forty minutes from West Warwick, both my wife and I had been to The Station many times before, and seeing the footage of the club immersed in flame for the first time is something neither of us will ever forget.

Great White was scheduled to film a live concert DVD three nights later in Hartford, where I was going to review the show for Metal Edge. But the afternoon of the show at The Station, their publicist mistakenly called to confirm the guest list for that night, then remembered that, “Oh, wait, you wanted to go to Hartford, right?”

The eerie hindsight of that phone call still makes me feel uncomfortable.

Watching the news break throughout Friday, it never occured to me that anyone would have thought that we might have been there. But that day of phone calls and e-mail was one of the most overwhelming things I’ve ever felt, surprised to realize how many people truly care about us. It was also one of the saddest things I’ve ever felt, calling my worried family and friends to let them know that we weren’t there, knowning that somewhere, somebody else’s family wasn’t going to get that reassuring call.

It took me about four months to be ready to see what happened that night in Rhode Island. Driving down I-95 around 2:00 a.m. after spending a day with Skid Row in Massachusetts, something just compelled me to take Exit 8B and make the familiar turn down Cowesett Avenue for the first time since before the fire. The debris of the building had been cleared away, leaving a cemetery without graves. Makeshift crosses and small keepsake relics were laid across the level, open space, and slowly, one by one, in the privacy of that night, I paid reverence to every single one of them.

Then I figured out where I would have been standing when the fire started. Using the neighboring building and the still-standing marquee as landmarks, I measured the distance from where I would have been to the door as twelve paces.

Twelve paces. Only twelve fucking paces, but I still would have died.

Their ghosts are there, and standing among them you can physically feel the chill, and a choking sadness that will probably never go away. When I got home that night, I cried, sobbing to my wife — not because I would have died, but because one hundred other people did.

For the survivors and the families of the victims of The Station nightclub fire, that night will never end. Remember them, as often as you remember the family and friends who were lost. Remember the “concert friends” you see at every show and know that any one of us could have been among these hundred people:

Louis S. Alves
Kevin Anderson
Stacie Angers
Christopher Arruda
Eugene Avilez
Tina Ayer
Karla Bagtaz
Mary H. Baker
Thomas Barnett
Lauren Beauchaine
Steven Thomas Blom
William C. “Billy” Bonardi III
Richard A. Cabral Jr.
Kristine Carbone
William Cartwright
Edward B. Corbett III
Michael Cordier
Alfred Crisostomi
Robert J. Croteau
Lisa D’Andrea
Matthew P. Darby
Dina Ann DeMaio
Albert Anthony DiBonaventura
Christina DiRienzo
Kevin J. Dunn
Lori K. Durante
Edward Ervanian
Thomas Fleming
Rachel Florio-DePietro
Mark Fontaine
Daniel Frederickson
Michael Fresolo
James Gahan
Melvin Gerfin
Laura Gillet
Charline E. Gingras-Fick
Michael James Gonsalves
James Gooden
Derek Gray
Skott Greene
Scott Griffith
Pamela Gruttadauria
Bonnie L. Hamelin
Jude Henault
Andrew Hoban
Abbie L. Hoisington
Michael Hoogasian
Sandy Hoogasian
Carlton “Bud” Howorth III
Eric J. Hyer
Derek Brian Johnson
Lisa Kelly
Tracy F. King
Michael Joseph Kulz
Keith Lapierre
Dale Latulippe
Stephen M. Libera
John M. Longiaru
Ty Longley
Andrea Mancini
Keith A. Mancini
Steven Mancini
Judith Manzo
Thomas Frank Marion
Jeffrey Martin
Tammy Mattera-Housa
Kristen Leigh McQuarrie
Thomas Medeiros
Samuel Miceli
Donna M. Mitchell
Leigh Ann Moreau
Ryan M. Morin
Jason Morton
Beth Ellen Mosczynski
Katherine O’Donnell
Nicholas Philip O’Neill
Matthew James Pickett
Carlos L. Pimentel Sr.
Christopher Prouty
Jeffrey Rader
Theresa Rakoski
Robert L. Reisner III
Walter Rich
Donald Roderiques
Tracey Romanoff
Joseph Rossi
Bridget Sanetti
Rebecca E. Shaw
Mitchell C. Shubert
Dennis Smith
Victor Stark
Benjamin Suffoletto
Linda Suffoletto
Shawn Sweet
Jason Sylvester
Sarah Jane Telgarsky
Kelly Viera
Kevin Washburn
Everett “Tommy” Woodmansee
Robert Daniel Young

www.stationfamilyfund.org