Dave Matthews Band’s ‘Poopgate’ To Become Documentary

It’s such an absurd story that it has a Wikipedia page dedicated to it and a sign on the Chicago bridge, which recalls what happened up there and especially down there. It all happened 20 years ago: “In August 2004, at this exact spot, the DMB tour bus dumped 350 kilos of poop on some people,” it reads. Luca Xavier Simes, editor of the Wikipedia page, recently announced a fundraiser to make a documentary about the story.

It’s all true: on the afternoon of August 8 of that year, the driver of one of the tour buses that was taking Dave Matthews and his band from one city to another in the United States thought it would be a good idea to dump the tanks that collected the excrement into the Chicago River, taking advantage of the car’s passage on the Kinzie Street Bridge in Chicago. Unfortunately, the pavement of the bridge was a grate and underneath, at that moment, a tourist boat was passing with about a hundred people on board, practically all in the open, on the upper deck. The result: 350 kilos of poop rained down on the heads of the tourists on board the boat, which was entirely covered in human excrement.

The driver was alone on the bus at the time, one of the 5 rented by the band to travel between dates: his was the one intended for violinist Boyd Tinsley. It was remembered as “Poopgate”: in 2005, Stefan Wohl, this is his name, was sentenced by a court to pay a $10,000 fine, perform 150 hours of community service and not commit any other crimes for 18 months.

Initially both the driver and the Dave Matthews Band denied responsibility for the accident, only to be unmasked in a press conference by the mayor of the city, a fan of the band. Who paid $200,000 in damages and donated $100,000 to local environmental organizations.