Saturday, August 21, 2010

RIP Michael Been (The Call)

It has been an odd week in the world of rock music...

The lead singer of a British pop trio climbed a telecommunications mast behind the main stage at a Belgian rock festival and leaped to his death in the parking lot below, police said Saturday

Twenty-two-year-old Charles Haddon of Ou Est Le Swimming Pool died late Friday during the Pukkelpop festival in Hasselt, a town in eastern Belgium. District attorney Marc Rubens said police were treating the death as a suicide.

On Thursday, Michael Been, frontman for the U.S. group The Call, died of an apparent heart attack at the same festival. The 60-year-old was working as the soundman for his son's band, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

On this side of the pond, a man jumped to his death onto the stage of a Northern California concert in front of hundreds of horrified music fans.

The band, the Swell Season, was playing an outdoor show at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga on Thursday night when the jump happened. Authorities are treating the death as a suicide, and the man's identity has not been released.

Witnesses say he jumped off the roof and landed on stage near the band's lead singer Glen Hansard.

Remember when you went to a concert, got stoned, and listened to the music?

Michael Been was the front man for the The Call, known for singles that included "Walls Came Down" and "Let The Day Begin." The Call released ten albums over their twenty-year career, and Been also released a solo album in the mid-1990's.

The band appeared to go on hiatus around the turn of the millennium, and Been concentrated on working with his son's group.

Been also appeared in a number of films, including Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation Of Christ, where he played the Apostle John.

3 comments:

  1. My thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of these two people who so tragically passed away.

    Yvonne.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Didn't The Call do I Still Believe? And 60 is too young.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Michael Been and the Call were big favorites of mine when I first got into Christian music in the 80s. They put out some pretty powerful albums. It was good music to listen to back in my traveling days. Sad news.

    Lee
    Tossing It Out

    ReplyDelete

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