Attacks in Paris: band in Atlanta Olympic bombing recalls terror

U2’s Bono said the Paris concert attack was the “first direct hit on music that we’ve had in this so-called War on Terror.”

But the music business – or at least a big crowd of music fans — has been hit by terrorism before.

And Atlanta, not Paris, was ground zero.

Andrew Kastner, a guitarist and leader of the band Jack Mack and the Heart Attack, remembers the group playing on stage in front of thousands of people when the blast of a bomb at Centennial Olympic Park blew and knocked him back on his feet. That was 1996, during the Atlanta Summer Olympic Games.

"I saw the blast and felt it in my chest. It kind of rocked me back on my feet," Kastner recalled when I recently phoned him. Then everyone ran. That's something they could do more easily in a park than fans could in the enclosed Paris concert hall where terrorists recently attacked with bombs and AK-47's.

ExploreCan concert organizers make us safe from such attacks? Kastner offers his thoughts, as well as his memories of terror, in the latest Unofficial Business column on myAJC.com.

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