DARRINGTON – The music is dead. The concert, what little of it there was, is history.
But the repercussions of the failed Darrington Rock Festival continue to echo all the way to China.
That’s where concert promoter Brian Burkel is living and, for the first time, is publicly defending himself against a chorus of criticism.
He admits he made mistakes when organizing the August 2006 concert, but he said he didn’t do anything criminal.
The Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office is pursuing a fraud investigation.
At the concert, three of the five headline bands, including classic-rock band Cheap Trick, did not perform because Burkel refused to pay them in full.
Several people working at the three-day event say they were either not paid or Burkel wrote them checks that later bounced.
Band managers and some of Burkel’s colleagues say he cheated them out of thousands of dollars. Many of the 2,000 fans who shelled out between $75 and $150 apiece for tickets are also angry.
Burkel, an ex-convict who makes a living selling autographs on the Internet, says he is the victim of unfortunate circumstances. He blames the concert’s failure on low ticket sales at the door, thieving colleagues and competition from Seafair.
Burkel said he lost more than $150,000 on the venture.
A few days after the concert, he moved to Guangzhou, China, where he said he is living with his bride, “an angel from China.”
“It’s been really hard to look back and have good thoughts because it was so disastrous,” he said, when reached by phone in China. “I was very surprised. I really expected to make money. I at least expected to break even. I had no idea it could be as bad as it was.”
Burkel, 50, said he made a novice’s mistake in counting on day-of-event sales to give him enough money to pay the bands and his workers.
He said his marketing manager, Bob Conrad of Knightime Direction in Scottsdale, Ariz., knew well in advance about his dependence on ticket sales.
Conrad says it isn’t so.
“I’ve been in the industry 36 years,” Conrad said. “That was never anything I’d put myself or my partner or my other employees’ families in jeopardy for.”
After the concert soured, Burkel admits giving Conrad a check he could not cover. Conrad said the check was for $36,431.
Burkel said everyone he gave bad checks to during the concert – including Conrad and a Budweiser delivery man – knew not to cash them immediately. Burkel said Conrad understood there wasn’t enough money in his account to cover the check.
“That’s absurd,” Conrad said, adding he would not have knowingly accepted a bad check.
Another reason so many of the checks bounced is that he did not write them – a thief did, Burkel said.
He said a man who was helping him with the concert broke into his trailer, stole his checks and began “handing them out like candy.”
He said another friend walked away with $30,000 that should have gone to paying the concert’s bills.
Consequently, he said, he closed his bank account.
Burkel said that when things went bad at the concert, he told off-duty sheriff’s deputies about his trouble. He didn’t file a police report, nor did he dial 911.
Burkel said that’s partly because he knew the people he accuses of stealing from him and didn’t want to get them in trouble. He said he’s a victim of theft but at the time didn’t think what happened to him was criminal.
Bands wouldn’t go on
One of the prime reasons the concert flopped is because many of the bands refused to play.
Burkel blames the bands.
It’s true, he said, that the artists were paid only half as much as promised, but they still should have gone onstage, perhaps playing just half as long.
“The bands didn’t care anything about their fans,” he said. “It flat out was a business thing with them. I felt they failed their fans.”
In addition to Cheap Trick, other musicians who refused to play included Savoy Brown, former Grand Funk Railroad singer Mark Farner, and Randy Bachman of Bachman Turner Overdrive.
Farner’s manager, Jim Della Croce, said Farner and his crews spent big money flying halfway across the country to attend the concert. The Darrington Rock Festival was the worst-run event he’s seen in 10 years, Della Croce said – so bad he ordered Farner not to play.
Burkel said Farner is a hypocrite. The rocker supposedly professes to be a born-again Christian, Burkel said, but seems more interested in money than music or his fans.
Burkel doesn’t get it, Della Croce said. Rock ‘n’ roll is also business.
“You have airfare, payroll, ground transportation, hotels, per diems, tips,” Della Croce said from Nashville, where he is based.
“You can go on and on as to the expenses of routing a band around the country to do concert dates. The cost of doing that is great and the profit is fair.
“However, it has always been industry standard in the entertainment business for the entertainers to be paid in full before they perform. This is not something new.”
Promoter doubts probe
Burkel said he doesn’t believe that the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office is actually investigating him.
“What’s there to investigate?” he asked. “It’s not criminal. It’s civil. It’s a matter of money. It’s nothing you go to jail for. It’s not a misdemeanor or anything.”
The investigation is “absolutely still an active case,” Snohomish County sheriff’s spokeswoman Rebecca Hover said.
Burkel said the bands and his former concert colleagues are welcome to file lawsuits against him, but he doesn’t think anything will come of it.
“I’d like to have my money back, too,” he said. “I don’t have any of the money. I’m out of business.”
Barbara Baker doesn’t buy Burkel’s story. The King County woman is convinced Burkel has plenty of money to pay the bands and concert workers, including her husband, Rafael Escobar.
Burkel owes Escobar $2,000 for jobs he did during the concert, such as cleaning and setting up for the event, Baker said. Escobar used to work as a landscaper at homes Burkel owns in Maple Valley. The $2,000 owed Escobar is a lot of money for his family, Baker said.
She doesn’t understand how Burkel can afford airfare to China but not pay his workers wages.
“He treats people bad, but when he talks he sounds so professional,” she said.
Conrad said his company is having credit and image problems as a result of the money owed by Burkel.
“It’s far from over,” he said. “There’s no way I’m ever going to let this thing go until we get every dime and then some. He’s stolen money from us and we want it back.”
Burkel said he doesn’t plan to organize any more concerts, which is just as well.
Duane Smith, vice president of the Darrington Bluegrass Association, which owns the Darrington amphitheater, said the association has decided not to allow any more rock festivals.
And since the concert, Burkel is not as big a Cheap Trick fan as he once was.
However, if he were to listen to Cheap Trick, he said the song he’d choose is “Surrender” – an act he doesn’t plan on doing anytime soon.
Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.
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