h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Our band was playing a gig at a Country Club in Pretoria (South Africa). It was the first week-night gig we had ever booked, as the band members are all in day-jobs and had to take a day's leave to set-up equipment, etc. As SA is eight hours ahead of NY, it was late afternoon when it happened. We had finished setting up and rushed home to change.

We returned to the venue to find everyone packed into the lounge area, glued to CNN. Nobody moved for hours, stunned and shocked. Uninformed people would arrive in party-mode and complain: 'Where's the music?' When they did find out, they too were stunned...

We did end up playing that night - the show must go on - but few people danced. Those who actually arrived at the event sat watching CNN in the lounge or talking at the tables. An event booked for over a thousand people saw fewer than four hundred show up. Even in SA the greater majority of people empathised with the victims and their families.

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