A prominent British rock band will likely play Liberty State Park this summer, bringing 12,000 to 14,000 fans to the south side of the Jersey City park, according to the state.
“They have made an inquiry directly to us,” Deputy Director of Parks and Forestry’s Carl Nordstrom said last week of Radiohead, a Grammy-winning band perhaps best known for “Creep” – an early-’90s radio hit. “We’re currently talking to them and the promoter,” he added.
Radiohead had requested to play Aug. 16 and 17 on the south overlook lawn near the administration building.
That same site last year served as host to the now-passe Hispanic pop star Ricky Martin, and several years ago an alternative music festival.
The state is in the middle of negotiating the terms of the deal, but word leaked out two weeks ago from web site rollingstone.com that the band had plans to play not only Liberty State Park, but other venues around the country. Other proposed dates include a stint at Suffolk Downs, a dog-racing track outside of Boston and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
Tickets are not yet available. The proposed dates are the only shows the band will play in the tri-state area.
A publicist for the band said only that some June dates had been confirmed, and that when further U.S. dates were nailed down, an announcement on the Liberty State Park date would be made.
Getting people in and out of the state park has been a recent concern with some 2,500 circus-goers causing traffic strains on weekends, but Nordstrom believes that the proposed dates should not be a hassle to those trying to get to the park.
“It won’t be on the weekend, for one,” he said. “It will be a Thursday and Friday.”
Last year, a July 6 Andrea Bocelli concert had been the subject of a class-action lawsuit filed by an Edison man who said the non-VIP parking in Bayonne and subsequent bus and light rail trip caused him and some 200 others to miss half of the blind opera star’s concert.
But the crowds for that show were much bigger than what is anticipated for this show.
Radiohead won a Grammy for its 1997 album “OK Computer,” a sprawling, grandiose and bleak expose on pre-millennial living. They followed that up with last year’s “Kid A,” and the band will release yet another album in June entitled “Amnesiac.”
They have in the past lambasted such public figures as Bill Gates (lead singer Thom Yorke once dedicated the song “Paranoid Android” to the Microsoft founder) and recently gave a thumbs-down rating to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Cirque du Trafic
The Cirque du Soleil, a Montreal-based traveling circus, may be wowing fans inside its tents at Liberty State Park, but outside it’s a vehicular logjam, some argue, and it’s a situation the critics had predicted would happen all along.
“The circus is overwhelming the park on weekends,” said Sam Pesin, President of The Friends of Liberty State Park.
The traffic generated from those leaving the circus’s first show and those coming for the second show between 3 and 4 p.m. causes the most havoc, mainly along Audrey Zapp Drive, say critics. These commuters are interfering with other park users and those who want to use the Circle Line ferry, they say. A city Cultural Arts/Ethnic festival scheduled for June 10 has been moved to Exchange Place after 16 years at the park’s train terminal, due in part to the circus’s presence.
At greatest issue is April 22, when several events converged on the state park, generating several thousand cars in the area and necessitating the close of Freedom Way, the park’s north-south road.
This is the latest in a number of skirmishes over the park’s use. In January, a fight over a water playground came to a head in a public hearing at the park’s science center. That plan had the backing of Mayor Bret Schundler and Peter Ylvisaker, president of the park’s Development Corporation. It now appears that that proposal is dead.
For Ylvisaker, a man instrumental in bringing the acclaimed Montreal circus to the park, the April 22 weekend was an unusual one, and one that has not since been repeated.
“I think it’s unfair to jump on one day that happened to be a blowout day,” he said. He noted several events like a March of Dimes and Ellis Island celebration combined with temperatures in the upper 70s to create the problem. “They were part of it,” he admitted of the circus’s cars, “but there were 500 out of 4,000 cars that were in Liberty State Park that day.”
Added Ylvisaker: “We’ve learned and we’ve made a few adjustments.” When asked what kind of adjustments, he responded, “I emphasize a few.” When pressed further, he noted that “the ferry is keeping the vehicular count low.”
The Cirque du Soleil’s Dralion, a circus from the Montreal-based group, began on April 4 and will run until June 10.
Ylvisaker estimates the circus will bring in some $500,000 to $750,000 for the park.
He believes that the traffic problems are minor, and that Pesin is a “closed door” when it comes to the park’s use. “There’s nothing that we will do,” he said, “that Sam will agree with, no matter how good it is. Where’s Sam’s commitment to active recreation? Where’s Sam’s commitment to the pool? Where’s Sam trying to help the kids?”
Pesin, who has called for the abolition of the development corporation, responded: “I would say that the development corporation’s only purpose is to commercialize and privatize the park.” He added: “Peter feels there’s nothing to do in the park unless there’s admission-charging.”