96 Olympics

Jack Mack & The Heart Attack was in the middle of their set when the bomb went off at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. We were booked to play every night of the 2 weeks during the Olympics. Half way into our set on the sixth night, as we were announcing the next song we were about to play, “I Walked Alone”, our lead singer T.C. Moses, started to introduce an entirely different song called, “Take me to the River”. I thought about getting on the microphone and correcting his mistake, but, I looked over at our sax player, Bill Bergman, and our eye contact said: let’s just do this song. After having played together for 16 years, we had an amazing non-verbal communication on stage.

Prior to that, during the previous song our record producer, Bill Wray, was on stage taking pictures of the band instead of being at the sound booth where he had been mixing our sound all week. When he heard that we were playing this song instead of the intended song, he ran back to the sound tower to adjust the mix. It turned out Bill Wray found out from Mark Smith that the police were checking out a strange package spotted leaning up against the sound booth. Everyone needed to clear the tower area. Bill and Don Pierson sat on a bench on the left side of the tower and discussed some technical stuff about the sound system. When Bill noticed some security officers moving people back from the front of the tower, he got up to help them. All this time, it never occurred to Bill that the package was really a bomb. He saw a cameraman taking pictures of the suspected bomb and when he turned to take the picture, he knocked over his partner. Bill helped his assistant up and told them they should both move back, away from the area. Bill went back to the left side of the tower as the band’s song ended. A woman on his left started to walk by Bill towards the front of the tower, but, Bill put out his arm and stopped her from advancing forward. He saved her from being seriously hurt or killed because the bomb went off the very next moment. Bill was knocked flat by the force of the blast and when he got up he saw a security guard holding his head. Bill’s first instinct was to dive on that security guard and get him down to the ground- thinking either another bomb might go off, or the tower might fall down on him. He also pulled the cameraman and another person down to the ground. Bill then went to get some towels for the wounded. When he got back he noticed some medics coming to help. Bill then directed them to the wounded victims. All this happened to Bill the because of our lead singers mistake in calling the wrong song. Thus, I stopped myself from correcting the mistake and Bill Wray ran back to mix a song he didn’t expect to be played. Bill was taking pictures and spotted the package, and had the insight to clear out the tower. Many lives were saved due to all of these circumstances.

The song we played was probably 5-6 minutes long and there was a 30 second gap before the next song. That song is under 4 minutes, so if we had played the right song in our set list, Bill would not have gotten back to the tower for another 4 minutes and he could have been badly hurt, or even killed while walking back to the tower. We were taping the show that night and the tape will show the exact timing of all this. Bill and I went back to the tower 4 days after the bombing and the tape was still in the tape machine. We had given this copy to the FBI.

I felt the bomb’s pressure on my chest from 150 feet away while on the stage, and it rocked me back on my heals. Some say they heard shrapnel flying over our heads. As soon as I heard and felt the blast, I knew it was a bomb. We froze, not knowing what to do. The next thing I know people are telling us to get out of the park quickly, so we all walked off the back of the stage and proceeded out in a very orderly manner. When we got outside the park, there was sheer pandemonium. There were police, firemen, and people running in all directions, sirens blaring. I remember standing there as the band was directed to go to our van and get back to the hotel. Bill Wray was an eye- witness, so he went with the police to be interrogated. I was trying to decide if I should go with Bill or the band, and then I saw a camera crew approaching. I decided I might as well do an interview for NBC. I believe that was the very first interview given to the press, and it went immediately out on the AP, making the headlines of every newspaper in the world. (Click on sound bite icon to hear interview.

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I finally went back to my hotel and turned the TV to CNN. They were reporting that something was happening, but they really didn’t have the story straight. So I looked up their telephone number in the yellow pages, and called them. When I told the receptionist that I was on stage when the bomb went off, she patched me right through to the producers and I was on the air live in a matter of minutes. I gave them my account of what had happened. They kept me on the air for about 20 minutes, but I started to worry about my producer and roommate, Bill Wray, since I hadn’t seen him since he went to the police station. I hung up on CNN and then called the police station. They told me Bill had left. So, I turned on the TV again and turned the channel only to find Tom Brokaw talking about the bombing, but, he didn’t have the story right either, and in a few minutes I was on the air live again this time with Tom Brokaw. Just then, Bill walked in and before even saying hello, I handed him the phone and said, “talk to Tom Brokaw”. As it turns out, when you stand that close to a bomb you get a brain concussion that puts you in a state of shock. I didn’t realize this had happened to Bill, and for the next few days he started acting pretty strange. He also had little bits of Metal in his body from the bomb, which he discovered later. The next day the media started to hound all of us, so we moved to a hotel 45 minutes outside of Atlanta. We had more gigs to play, so we needed to stay in Atlanta for another week. The entire time we were in Atlanta we were hounded by the media and press all wanting interviews. We liked the publicity, but since this was a tragic event, we had to be very careful about what we said and how we approached all of the publicity.

Only after many years was Eric Rudolph convicted of setting off the bomb in Centennial Park in Atlanta, during the middle of our performance that summer of ’96. That week in July had to be one of the craziest weeks of our lives.

Andrew