I'm beginning to wonder if Opeth are cursed.
Over the past few years, bad things tend to happen when the Swedish deathprog metal makers hit the road. When Opeth stopped in St. Pete in 2005, their tour bus driver was arrested for child pornography and flying an underage Michigan girl to meet him in Tampa. Opeth were guilty only by association — they knew nothing about what their driver was up to, and the man was hired by the label for that tour.
Last week, the band's tour bus was involved in a fatal collision while traveling from Dublin to Brussels on their current European tour. Thankfully, the only band members on the bus at the time were bassist Martin Mendez and keyboardist Per Wiberg (singer/guitarist Mikael Akerfeldt and the rest flew home for a few days to be with their families), and neither were injured.
I'd say the driver of the other car wasn't quite so lucky, except he got exactly what he wanted.
This article appears in Oct 22-28, 2009.