Fairgrounds manager Steve Money won't be booking future concerts without approval from city officials after signing a controversial band to perform next month. Money reportedly used a mayoral rubber stamp to ink the contract, which is apparently standard procedure for department heads.
The booking of Rage Against the Machine, a hard-rock group, sent shock waves through City Hall. Assistant City Manager MaryClare Maslyn said a policy change has been put in place so it won't happen again.Mayor Marie Huff said Money no longer will have carte blanche authority to book concerts. "We have to know a little more about them," she said. "I think (Money) was very naive" about the group, she said.
Money still has the rubber stamp with Huff's signature on it, but "he'll have to be a little more careful with it," and no longer can use it for concert contracts. Huff said it generally was used to book horse shows and similar events at the Spanish Fork Fairgrounds.
City Councilman Clyde Swenson said the council hasn't met to discuss the issue. He said action against Money didn't come from the council, but city officials are considering background checks before signing future groups.
Money refused comment.
Swenson said the city attorney has been working with Rage Against the Machine's promoter to make sure city ordinances are followed and that security is in place. "We'll be prepared," Huff said.
City Councilman Sherman Huff (no relation to the mayor) said he was "a bit shaken" when he heard the group was coming, expressing the mood of many city officials.
Rage Against the Machine is to perform Sept. 11 with two other bands at the SpanishFork Fairgrounds. Maslyn said the show will go on rather than pay the band to stay away. That would reportedly cost the city some $80,000. Swenson said city attorney Junior Baker had looked into the possibility of canceling the concert.
Two punk-rock groups, Girls Against Boys and Stanford Prison Experiment, are the opening acts, according to Kristen Young of Salt Lake radio station X-96. She described Rage Against the Machine as "definitely loud," filled with "Big Brother" political rhetoric. "It's going to be a rowdy crowd, no question about it," she said. X-96 is the presenting radio station.
Rage Against the Machine's two CDs have explicit language warnings.
Band members will bring an informational booth touting their favorite political causes, which include granting a new trial to convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal, a death-row inmate in Pennsylvania, according to lead guitarist Tom Morello. The group will also have information regarding its support of Leonard Peltier, an American Indian convicted of killing a federal officer. Peltier is in a North Dakota prison.
Morello said the show will begin with a short documentary film, "Obedience," about Stanley Milgram, a Berkeley, Calif., clinical psychologist who experimented on the deference to authority using electrical shocks.
Of the 8,000 tickets promoted statewide, some 6,600 sold in the first three days, sources said.
Staff reporter Jeff Vice contributed to this story.