As live music rung out from the speakers at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center, attendees at the “Viva Las Vengeance” tour’s concert filmed footage of the blaze. They said the fire was the result of pyrotechnics used on the sizable venue’s stage.
“It’s not a Panic at the disco concert unless the pyro machine catches fire,” one attendee said in a caption to shared footage, which showed staffers hurriedly extinguishing the flames as audience members loudly cheered.
Despite the videos of the fire, it appeared that the show was largely successful, and there were no reports of injuries. St. Paul Pioneer Press critic Ross Raihala estimated that 7,500 fans attended the concert.
Footage from another angle that was shared on YouTube showed Urie enthusiastically dancing on another part of the stage, apparently unaware of the small blaze.
“Fire!” an attendee repeatedly yelled, before saying about Urie, “He doesn’t know.” A guitar player was seen moving to safety as the flames were put out to huge cheers.
Another Twitter video, from a more elevated position, appeared to show that nobody was injured during the blaze.
“Fire broke out on stage,” the Twitter user wrote in a caption to the seconds-long footage.
Another Twitter user who shared a photo of the fire said in follow-up posts that the crew was ready for what happened and that no one was hurt.
“My son and my daughter were both there,” the user wrote. “My son is an engineer who did his masters work on crowd safety, so you bet he was prepared. They both got out fine. They said the band was well prepared with fire extinguishers.”
Newsweek has reached out to representatives of Panic! at the Disco and the Xcel Energy Center for comment.
Raihala, the Pioneer Press critic, gave the show a mostly positive review.
“‘Viva’ is packed with towering arena rock epics that Urie absolutely nailed,” he wrote. “The most compelling moments, though, were the quieter ones. A song about a relationship ending in death, ‘Don’t Let the Light Go Out,’ is easily the strongest of the bunch with a real emotional resonance.
“And ‘All by Yourself’ is such a savvy, cheeky rehash of Eric Carmen’s classic ‘All by Myself,’ they gave him a writing credit,” he said.
“The crowd perked up at times during the new material, but often sat in quiet reverence. But the older stuff—almost all from the past decade—got massive responses, from ‘Say Amen (Saturday Night)’ to ‘High Hopes,’” Raihala wrote.
Panic! at the Disco was formed in 2004, featuring singer and songwriter Urie along with childhood friends Ryan Ross, Spencer Smith and Brent Wilson. Smith, the last remaining original member besides Urie, left in 2015, and the band became Urie’s solo project.
