Some sad and tragic news to report from Chicago this Memorial Day weekend. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that 24 year-old Kyle Kirchoff died this past Friday night after a fall from a catwalk at the Aragon Ballroom during a Chevelle concert. According to the paper, at 10:21, Kirchoff fell onto two pieces of metal, suffering puncture wounds to his chest. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead later that night. The show was immediately ended, with the band apologizing via Facebook before they knew what had happened:

To our fans at the Chicago show : We are very sorry we had to end the show early. Due to a serious injury in the crowd the fire marshal was forced to cancel the rest of the show. We hope that whoever was injured makes a swift recovery.

Of course, the internet being what it is, there were many fans irate that the band had to cut the show short. Chevelle actually responded to some on the Facebook thread, saying that it was out of their control. While unsubstantiated, the thread also has comments from people saying that Kirchoff was in the VIP area, fell, and was stuck after being impaled. The Used and Marmozets were also on the bill.

[UPDATE}: The band has released a statement via their Facebook page about the incident:

To our fans, as you may or may not have heard, an extremely unfortunate event occurred at our show in Chicago Friday night.

We were asked by police to stop our set so that the authorities could tend to an injured fan. Once the severity of the accident was determined the authorities cleared out the venue to give them time to investigate. We want to thank our Chicago fans for their respect of the authorities and for understanding that these decisions made by the authorities were out of our control. We love our fans in Chicago and while there was no question that the show would be cut short in light of this tragic event, we will be sure to play for you all again as soon as possible.

[via Lambgoat]

Bram Teitelman

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