Dave Matthews Band incident: 20 years after disgusting mishap in Chicago, victims now can laugh about it
Tracy Dangott expects a deluge of snarky texts from friends on Thursday.
The day — Aug. 8, to be exact — will mark the 20th anniversary of what's popularly known as The Dave Matthews Band Incident.
On that sunny Sunday afternoon in 2004, a bus driver for the rock group passed over the Chicago River and discharged 800 pounds of liquid waste from the vehicle's septic tank that passed through the steel grating of the Kinzie Street Bridge and showered dozens of passengers who were enjoying an architectural boat cruise.
Dangott and his then-wife and two friends were on the part of the boat that got it the worst.
He was 29, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and had a motorcycle helmet in his lap that acted like a soup bowl.
"It's one of those things that's had more importance in the cultural zeitgeist than it possibly should. What the hell? Why are we talking about this 20 years later?"
Dangott, who works in the financial industry, raised his voice to ask a few of his younger colleagues whose desks are outside his office: "Have you heard of The Dave Matthews Band Incident?"
A few seconds go by.
"Yea, they've heard of it ... and now they're reenacting it," he said. The bit of theater consisted of hands in air, stunned looks on faces.
The following exchange went like this: "You saw it happen?" "I was on the boat." "Did you get hit?" "Very much so."
Dangott said he washed his motorcycle helmet out with a hose when the boat got back to the dock near Michigan Avenue. He then put it on his head and zoomed back to his Lake View home on his Kawasaki. His spouse, who also got doused, clung to his waist. He called his doctor, who suggested they get hepatitis shots the next day.
"It was the worst experience," he said with a laugh.
Dangott said he still has the T-shirt his boss bought for him shortly after the incident. A Dave Matthews Band tour bus on the front, dates and cities of each show from that tour on the back.
The episode is really funny . . . in hindsight.
"It took me a good solid year before I could laugh at it. I was just angry and disgusted for the first six months," said Dangott, who expects a flood of the usual texts from friends on the anniversary of the incident. They usually consist of a picture of a plaque someone placed on the bridge commemorating the incident.
Nacy Todor, who was sitting next to Dangott, also expects a flood of text messages this week reading "Happy poopiversary!"
She's been laughing at the moment since it happened.
"I have a twisted sense of humor, so at the same time that I was crying and throwing up, I was laughing, too, because you can't make this s--- up, pardon the pun," she said.
"All I remember is looking and seeing a bus and then a rust-colored waterfall," said Todor, who worked in the financial industry back then but has since become a grade school teacher in the western suburbs. "I have a very strong gag reflex. I avoid outhouses like the plague."
Thankfully, a pal who also got splashed had a convertible and gave her a lift to her home in Elmhurst with the top down. She took a two-hour shower, called lots of friends and family to tell them what happened, then went to dinner at Mon Ami Gabi in Oak Brook and told the wait staff, too.
"I just had to get it out of me, I told everyone," she said.
She cut her long wavy hair short the next day.
It took years before Sonja Lund, who was 24 and the captain aboard Chicago's Little Lady that day, could laugh about it.
Images that come to her mind from that day are a baby who wouldn't stop crying and an old lady with hair matted to her head.
"When it became clear what I needed to do, I hammered down on the throttle and we just blasted back to the dock," said Lund, noting that she broke the no-wake rule on the river and may have bounced some smaller boats around a bit and tipped a kayaker or two.
"I told the bartender to open the bar and give people anything they wanted — a shot of whiskey, bottle of water — just give it to them, anything to make them more comfortable and calm people down," she recalled, emphasizing her concern at the time that people might jump from the boat in disgust. (No one did.)
"It was a few years before I could take it a little less seriously. It was just terribly upsetting, and I was like 'Why is everyone laughing? It's not funny. It's terrible.' "
Her evolution is clear as she says the last two sentences with a tinge of laughter.
She hopes everyone on the boat has skewed toward humor over time.
Bus driver Stefan Wohl, who was alone as he was headed east to the Peninsula Hotel, was charged with misdemeanor counts of reckless conduct and discharging contaminants to cause water pollution. He pleaded guilty, was ordered to pay the Friends of the Chicago River $10,000 and perform 150 hours community service in the community in Texas where he was from.
The Dave Matthews Band initially backed the driver, who denied dumping the waste before owning up to it. The band went so far as to offer up DNA samples to investigators. Video evidence that police tracked down from security cameras at the nearby East Bank Club left no doubt who was at fault.
A number of lawsuits were filed, including by several passengers and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who ultimately dropped the suit in exchange for the band's agreeing to donate $200,000 to state environmental programs.
The band also donated $50,000 each to Friends of the Chicago River and the Chicago Park District, and the city raised its fines for illegal dumping.
Margaret Frisbie, executive director Friends of the Chicago River, said she tried to reach out to the band through an intermediary to see if Dave Matthews would be willing use the 20th anniversary to help the environment.
She wanted to see if Matthews would donate a minute of his time in the form of a Zoom call that would be auctioned off at the non-profit's annual Big Fish Ball, or record a short video to be played at the gala.
"The incident is woven into the city's pop culture fabric and the anniversary seemed like an opportunity to emphasize that the world has to protect our natural resources, but it didn't work out," Frisbie said of the effort.
The Chicago Architecture Center, which continues to host river tours along with Chicago's Little Lady operator Chicago’s First Lady, provided a joint statement on the anniversary that read in part:
“There is certainly no joy in reliving the 2004 event that traumatized our passengers and crew. . . . We choose to not let what took place that day diminish our contributions in showcasing the city we love with the world.
The Dave Matthews Band didn't return a message seeking comment.