Features
Concertgoer Sues KISS
Carly Miller filed suit last week against the band, Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Mich., and three companies linked to the May 8 concert.
Miller, of Grand Rapids, claims in the suit that she suffered severe damage to her hand after a string wrapped around one of her fingers and was pulled by fans trying to grab the guitar parts.
Miller’s attorney, Jason Barrix, said his client was pulled from her seat in the third row.
“It hit her hand and people were fighting over pieces of the guitar and somehow this guitar string got wrapped around her finger,” he said.
Amid a confetti storm and pyrotechnics during “Rock and Roll All Nite,” the band’s final encore, Stanley smashed a guitar and threw pieces into the audience.
Barris told The Grand Rapids Press that Miller went to the concert with her boyfriend and had never seen KISS live before.
He said she temporarily lost all feeling in her right middle finger and has a permanent scar. She also suffered bruises from being pulled over two rows of chairs, he said.
Van Andel Arena GM Rick MacKiegan declined to discuss the suit.
According to court documents, Miller was injured when she put her hands up to protect her face from the flying guitar piece.
“As the guitar struck her hand, a broken metallic guitar string wrapped around the third digit of her dominant hand and thereafter caused an extreme and severe ‘steel string ligature’ when the guitar was yanked by competing members of the crowd who sought the guitar,” the lawsuit states.