PARIS — In what became a real-life Friday the Thirteenth, coordinated terrorist attacks on November 13, 2015 at the Bataclan theater (a popular Parisian music venue), and also at a local stadium claimed the lives of 129 innocent people — including the band’s merchandise manager and the venue’s lighting tech. Another 350 were wounded with nearly 100 in critical condition, so the death toll could rise in the days to come. Meanwhile, major stadium concert cancellations by U2 and the Foo Fighters followed in its wake. The incidents mark the worst terror attacks in French history.
A popular Parisian music venue, the 160-year-old Bataclan is a 1,500-capacity theater located at 50 Boulevard Voltaire, in the city’s 11th arrondissement neighborhood, near the Place de la République in the center of the town.
Most of the evening’s victims were killed by a torrent of machine gun fire and suicide bombs after armed gunmen entered the venue around 9:20 pm, as headliners American rock band Eagles of Death Metal were playing for a sold-out crowd at the Bataclan. On the way to storming the theater, the four attackers sprayed gunfire into nearby restaurants, leaving dozens of others dead and injured. Once inside the theater, the gunmen shot into the crowd, apparently randomly, shooting whoever they happened to see and then took approximately 100 hostages, some of who were then shot execution-style. Later, French security forces broke in, killing at least one of the gunmen, while the other three died after apparently detonating the suicide bomb vests they were wearing.
According to social media posts by the band’s families, all of the Eagles of Death Metal members and their stage crew dropped down as soon as the shooting began and were able to escape via the club’s rear entrance, escaping injury.
The Miracle at FOH
Clearly in a vulnerable position, Eagles of Death Metal’s front of house engineer Shawn London miraculously escaped harm when gunfire directed at him missed, tearing into his console. London immediately hit the floor, crouched beneath the mixer and took refuge there until a lull in the shootings. With that opportunity, he led a group of fans (including several that were injured) out the front entrance, as a hail of bullets whizzed past from behind, shattering the Bataclan’s glass entry doors as they exited to relative safety to the street in front of the venue.
Unfortunately, one of those killed was 36-year-old Nick Alexander, a British national who was managing merchandise sales at the theater for the Eagles of Death Metal. Alexander was well liked in the industry and also handled merchandise on tours for numerous other bands, including Alice in Chains, The Black Keys, Cat Stevens, Panic at the Disco and Skid Row. A memorial GoFundMe account has been set up by industry friends in memory of Nick Alexander at gofundme.com/y7aaknp8, with the money going to benefit his family.
Another confirmed fatality within the Bataclan was Nathalie Jardin, a native of Marcq-en-Baroeul in Northern France. The venue’s in-house lighting designer, Jardin, who was known by the nickname “Natalite” (for her love of lighting), had been working at the venue since 2011 and was very popular with visiting acts. She began her career as an intern with Marcel and His Orchestra and also worked with the group les Nuits Secrètes (Secret Nights). Jardin was 31.
Among the audience victims at the Bataclan was 43-year-old Pierre-Yves Guyomard, a professor who taught sound reinforcement and recording production at both SAE Paris and at the ISTS (Groupe ESRA) institute in Paris and also did freelance live and studio engineering with the band Tanger, singer Leslie Winer and various local acts. Guyomard, a 15-year veteran instructor at ISTS, and his wife Anne Cornet Guyomard (29) were both killed during the incident.
An attack by three suicide bombers took place outside the Stade de France stadium during a soccer match by German and French teams attended by 80,000 fans and French president François Hollande, who was quickly evacuated. The three attackers detonating their vests and one bystander was killed; none of the attackers were able to get past security checkpoints at the stadium entrance.
Members of the Sacramento, CA-based alt rock band The Deftones and part of their crew were also at the Bataclan the evening of the attack, but evidently left the venue about 15 minutes before the carnage occurred. The band was slated to begin a three-night run (Nov. 14-16) starting the next night. Those Deftones shows were, of course, canceled.
The news also resulted in precautionary closures of schools, cultural sites, the Eiffel Tower, cinemas, department stores and Disneyland Paris.
Other canceled events throughout Paris included a U2 show slated for Saturday, Nov. 14 at Paris’ AccorHotels Arena, which was also due to be aired as an HBO special. The Foo Fighters also canceled the last four dates in their European tour, including a show (also at the AccorHotels Arena in Paris) on Monday, Nov. 16, and following dates in Lyon, Torino and Barcelona.
U2 members were said to be “devastated” by the attacks, and frontman Bono referred to the events as a “direct hit against music” in comments on Irish radio program, the Dave Fanning Show, as reported in The Guardian. “The majority of victims from last night’s attacks were music fans,” said Bono. “So this really is the first direct hit on music we’ve had on this so-called war on terror. We know that they don’t like music… and this and the cold-blooded aspect of last night’s attacks are what are really upsetting because it means it could have been any of us.”
The Eagles of Death Metal — whose European tour had been slated to continue through December — canceled the remainder of the outing and returned to the U.S.
Later, life in Paris began returning to semi-normalcy, albeit slowly. Lights on the closed Eiffel Tower were dimmed as a sign of mourning after the Friday attacks, then the popular attraction was open to visitors the following Monday, with the structure lit in the dramatic red, white and blue colors of the French flag. After a four-day closure, Disneyland Paris reopened on Wednesday, Nov. 18.
The night before, Nov. 17, the Belfast, Ireland-based punk band Stiff Little Fingers became the first major act to perform in Paris after the attacks the previous Friday, doing a show at the Back of the Mill, a venue near the famed Moulin Rouge. Stiff Little Fingers’ lead singer Jake Burns thanked the audience for attending, saying he wanted to play a “normal” show, and added “everybody in the world knows what happened in Paris on Friday night and everyone in the world has their hearts with you.”
Bono voiced similarly sentiments on Dec. 7 as U2 performed its postponed HBO special concert. Joining them onstage at the AccorHotels Arena were surprise guests Eagles of Death Metal, who also hope to be the first act slated for the Bataclan so they can finish their show there after it reopens in 2016.
