Travis Scott and Astroworld: The Devil Went Down to Houston (Rewind)

Travis Scott’s 2021 Astroworld music festival turned out to be a deadly disaster. Was it greed? Satanism? Or was something even more mysterious and evil behind the events that took the lives of ten concertgoers and injured and traumatized many others? This episode was originally published on October 1, 2024. To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at www.disgracelandpod.com. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to exclusive content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership. Visit www.disgracelandpod.com/merch to see the latest Disgraceland merch! Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - GET THE NEWSLETTER Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: Instagram YouTube X (formerly Twitter) Facebook Fan Group See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:14Speaker 00

  Your business operates under pressure and you need control of your data. But IBM Research shows only 9% of companies have real oversight of their technology. IBM's Open Hybrid Cloud approach is designed to give you visibility with built-in governance tools, data sovereignty, and compliance reporting. It's another way IBM helps you stay in control of your data. Let's create smarter business. IBM. Visit IBM.com to learn more.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  Join me, Cyndi Lauper, with Chef Michelle Bernstein and Dr. Panico to talk about psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, the potential connection and risk of developing permanent joint damage.

• 1:28Speaker 03

  Cosentyx secukinumab is prescribed for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis 300-milligram dose and adults with active psoriatic arthritis 150-milligram dose. Don't use if you're allergic to Cosentyx. Before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. An increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur, like tuberculosis or other serious bacterial, fungal, or viral infections. Some are fatal. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms like fevers, sweats, chills, muscle aches, or cough, had a vaccine or plan to, or if inflammatory bowel disease symptoms develop or worsen. Serious allergic reactions and severe eczema-like skin reactions may occur. Learn more at 1-844-COSENTIX or cocentix.com/cindy.

• 2:14Jake Brennan?

  Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis.

• 2:32Jake Brennan?

  This is a story about a music festival. And not just any music festival. A disastrous music festival led by one of the biggest musical stars in the world, Travis Scott. But this is also a story about, well, hell. And one of the dirtiest of the seven deadly sins: greed. And this is also a story about the devil and what happens when the devil is in control. It's the story of a supposed satanic sacrifice, an energy harvest wherein innocent souls were stolen. This is the story about Travis Scott's Astroworld, a festival that contained some great music.

• 3:15Jake Brennan?

  Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Mellotron called Barbarian Bolero MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to "Easy on Me" by Adele. And why would I play you that specific slice of redemptive torch cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on November 5, 2021. And that was the day that a music festival organized by a hometown hero in Houston went horribly awry, plunging tens of thousands into what truly felt like hell on earth.

• 3:59Jake Brennan?

  On this episode, greed, satanic sacrifices, snatched souls, and Travis Scott's Astroworld. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgrace Land.

• 4:44Jake Brennan?

  Hell. That was a word used to describe the COVID-19 pandemic, especially by frontline workers who witnessed the worst of the infectious disease at close range. Here in the U.S., in January of 2021, just about a year after the first case was recorded in Washington State, cases suddenly surged nationwide. And it's not difficult to understand why. Social distancing, mass, isolation, that type of behavior, it's not normal. Those restrictions, human beings aren't supposed to live with them. We require contact, interaction. We need to be around other people.

• 5:28Jake Brennan?

  Whether it's at the movie theater, or a concert venue, or a church, or a ballpark, shared experiences are crucial to the human experience. Coming out of COVID, what we wanted more than anything was to have those experiences again, to get our lives back, to feel that sense of normalcy, a sense of ourselves in social settings with other people. But we had to relearn it. Months, a year spent in isolation meant we were collectively rusty. So we conjured a spell, one we hoped would heal the pain of COVID.

• 6:07Jake Brennan?

  But instead, we created a monster, a malevolent entity with a mind of its own. And for those unlucky enough to get in the path of this monster, they found themselves staring down the very thing we all thought we'd escaped from: hell.

• 6:27Jake Brennan?

  November 5, 2021, Houston, Texas, 9:00 a.m. The crowd outside Energy Park was growing restless. Some fans had been there long before sunrise, but the gates wouldn't open for another hour. So they were forced to wait. But what they really wanted was to be letting out all that emotion and aggression that they'd stored up during the COVID-19 pandemic in isolation. They wanted to rage. Check that. They were under a directive to rage, per the organizer and headliner of the third annual Astroworld Festival, the hip-hop artist Travis Scott.

• 7:08Jake Brennan?

  Raging was Travis Scott's ethos, the kind shared by a hardcore punk audience or Travis's beloved world of professional wrestling. A Travis Scott show implied physical audience participation: mosh pits, crowd surfing, stage rushing. And while part of the allure of Astroworld was the eclectic two-day lineup with performances by Bad Bunny, Tame Impala, SZA, then Earth, Wind & Fire, to name a few, Travis Scott was different. He was a hometown boy, made good and all that. Two solo albums that debuted at the top of the Billboard album chart: Birds in the Trap

• 7:49Jake Brennan?

  Sing Goodnight and Astroworld, the latter named after the former Six Flags amusement park in Houston that once stood near the music festival's location. A compilation album called Jack Boys also number one, number one singles too. And don't forget the merchandise collaborations with Hot Wheels, with Nike, with Reese's, and most famously with McDonald's, who just one year prior had made Travis the first celebrity to be featured on their menu since Michael Jordan way back in 1992. My point is Travis Scott in November of 2021 was huge. But back home in Houston, Travis Scott was beyond huge.

• 8:33Jake Brennan?

  He loomed large, just like that giant statue of him now loomed over the growing crowd of hundreds impatiently waiting for the gates to open and let them into Energy Park and into the Astroworld Festival. Once inside, their eyes would be open to a whole new universe, or so promised the promotional posters. "See you on the other side," the poster read, next to a sketch of a pair of hands with big eyes stuck in their palms and what looked to be a two-lane road descending down a large tunnel. Above that tunnel was a crude drawing of a figure walking through a doorframe. A whole new universe, the other side, here tonight. The crowd that was assembled outside the gates understood the assignment at hand.

• 9:16Jake Brennan?

  To get to that other side, they had to push the party to the edge of total chaos. Only then would the experience be truly transformative. The crowd had done this in 2015 at Lollapalooza in Chicago when Travis Scott encouraged fans to jump the barricades, to give any and all security guards the finger, and to chant, "We want rage." Travis got the boot just five minutes into his set, but not before a 15-year-old girl was injured in the resulting stampede, for which Travis Scott was charged with reckless conduct and sentenced to one year of court supervision. Two years later, in 2017, Travis was charged with disorderly conduct in order to pay restitution

• 9:58Jake Brennan?

  to multiple people who were injured when he once again instructed fans to rush the stage during a show in Arkansas. And just weeks after that, at a show in Manhattan, Travis Scott onstage at Terminal 5 looked up at a fan dangling from the second-floor balcony about to fall into the audience below. "I see you, but are you gonna do it?" Travis asked from the stage. The kid hesitated. "They're gonna catch you," Travis said. "Don't be scared, don't be scared." The kid let go. It was dropped safely into the arms of his fellow concertgoers. Not so lucky was the next fan to fall from the same balcony, who did so not under his own volition, but because he was pushed as the crowd surged against his back.

• 10:43Jake Brennan?

  He tumbled over the edge, falling fast, hitting the floor with such force that he immediately broke several bones in his vertebrae and was paralyzed.

• 10:52Jake Brennan?

  Now, on November 5th, 2021, at Astroworld, those who had been injured and disabled at previous Travis Scott shows were a distant memory. Covid felt like a lifetime ago, a really bad dream that everyone had since woken up from. Here now, it was all about moving forward, onwards and upwards from the past year and through these gates. And so, even before the gates officially opened at 10 a.m., that's what many were doing, crawling under fences, knocking over barricades, snapping the chain-linked fences with bolt cutters. Even those who weren't supposed to be there, literally thousands more are showing up beyond the 50,000 ticketed attendees.

• 11:32Jake Brennan?

  And when the gates did open for real, it was like a swollen river bursting a dam. No order, no chill, just a swarm of bodies, mostly teenagers and young adults, feet pounding the pavement, some pushed, some pulled, some falling to the ground, trampled, entire sections of fencing flattened. They skipped security checkpoints, knocked over metal detectors. The first set by the first artist of the day wasn't for another three hours, but none of that mattered. Time, right now, moved just as unpredictably as it had during the pandemic.

• 12:08Jake Brennan?

  But you, you're moving with purpose. You're trying to get safely past the crush at the gate and get inside, which you do. And the first point of interest you encounter is the merch booth. Hundreds, if not thousands, of bodies are running straight for it. The barricades set up to maintain an organized line of commerce are being ignored. Kids are jumping them or just pushing them aside, cutting the line if there was even a line to cut. The crowd grows, the bodies push forward. You're caught in the flow, against your will, so you find a way out and take it. And just at that moment, the crowd gets really crazy. Kids, adults, normal human beings suddenly gone feral. They want what they want and they're going to take it. As you walk away, you watch as people start

• 12:52Jake Brennan?

  to pounce on the merch counter, grabbing t-shirts, grabbing for registers full of cash, whatever they can get their hands on. Minutes later, you hear some dude telling his girl that the merch area was shut down after multiple requests for police and medical attention. By this point, you've made your way through the giant whitehead statue of Travis Scott that leads into the main concert area. It's the same bust of Travis on the cover of his Astroworld album. You walk straight through his open mouth, which is kind of rad, but also kind of gross at the same time. And then, right up ahead, you see it, just like it was shown to you on the Astroworld posters. That long road descending into a large tunnel.

• 13:35Jake Brennan?

  But this road is actually a stage, which looks not unlike an inverted cross. And the large tunnel that this inverted cross sprawls into is actually a circle, constructed in layers to create depth. That circle is drilled into an even bigger backdrop, which is shaped like a mountain. Right now, the mountain is black with a tan outline, nondescript, just another man-made structure in broad daylight. But tonight, at 9 p.m. to be exact, it will change. Everything will change. Because that's when Travis Scott will take the stage. That's

• 14:18Jake Brennan?

  when that nondescript man-made structure will become possessed. That's when the monster will take over. And you, and every other person here, willingly or not, will be taken, kicking and screaming to the other side.

• 14:59Speaker 00

  Running a business means keeping pace with the latest tech. You put a lot into building your enterprise software stack, and scrapping it to integrate AI is out of the question. That's why IBM Technology works with all the apps, data, and models you need. It's another way IBM helps you build on the technology you rely on. Let's create smarter business. IBM. Visit ibm.com to learn more.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 16:00Jake Brennan?

  By 8:30 that evening, the mountain backdrop on the Astroworld stage was glowing yellow, then orange, and then red. The audience was well beyond capacity. Remember, that's 50,000 people, due to all the gate crashers who overwhelmed Astroworld's infrastructure. The incredibly bright colors radiating from the stage cut through the dark Houston night, bleeding all over the fences staring back. And the layered circles at the center of the mountain began to glow red, too. Then the words "See You on the Other Side" were followed by a timer. It started at 30 minutes and immediately began to count down. Fans

• 16:40Jake Brennan?

  had spent the last seven-plus hours watching sets by Master P, by Don Tolliver, by Lil Baby and others. But they were beyond sight for their hometown hero. Each minute that the timer counted down was a minute closer to Travis Scott, closer to rage, closer to that other side. 25 minutes, 20, 15. Around the 10-minute mark, in the front-left quadrant up near the stage, a huge surge in the crowd came from behind. It was violent and quick, and there was no choice but to be carried along. People were packed in so tight that you either had your arms straight up in the air or straight down by your side. It was

• 17:23Jake Brennan?

  like you looked directly into the eyes of Medusa, turned to stone with a snap. Arms pressed against your chest, fists clenched near your neck, your head leaning back, face angled up to the open sky, gasping for a few tiny breaths above the fray. The air of anticipation and excitement, so often present at the start of a show like this, suddenly blotted out by a feeling of dread. Someone screamed, and then another, war cries and sounds of warning. The blood-red light from the stage intensified. Five minutes, four, three, two, one. An organ rang out, started low and then building, ancient history

• 18:08Jake Brennan?

  reanimated but still rotten. The layered circles in the center of the mountain on stage began to glow deep red. The monster was alive now, taking shape. It sent forth a messenger to announce its arrival. An image of a bird or a dragon was flapping its wings in a cloud of fire at the top of the mountain. And the organ music became autotuned, inverted just like that cross of a stage. Without warning, Travis Scott jumped from out of nowhere, his feet landing hard, the music hitting even harder. Bass, treble, organ, fire. Huge flames shot into the sky all around him. Travis's first song was called Escape

• 18:52Jake Brennan?

  Plan. Ironic, seeing as there was no escape as the crowd once again surged forward. This time, the surge was harder and more forceful than before. Bodies sandwiched into other bodies, so tight that you could feel your lungs compress and the air leak out of you. If you've ever been in a crowd crush before, you know how frightening it is. Not just the realization that your oxygen supply has been cut out, or of the adrenaline and the survival instinct that kicks in to save you, but the feeling that you've completely lost control. Thousands of bodies, all becoming one, moving as one, ebbing and flowing as

• 19:32Jake Brennan?

  one. Your feet literally lift off the ground, you are moved from one spot to another. It's like you're being carried away on a gigantic wave in the ocean, only the ocean is other people, just like hell is other people. And make no mistake, hell was here, on Earth, at Astroworld. The monster's voice was in the bass frequencies, so loud that it felt like the ground was about to split open and swallow everyone whole. The monster's tongue was in the flames that continued to erupt all over the stage. Darkness devoured the light. The mountain was a volcano. The center of the layered circle morphed into a giant

• 20:14Jake Brennan?

  eyeball, darting to the left and then to the right, looking at all 50,000-plus people out there, looking directly at you, all seeing, all knowing. The crowd crush swelled again as the inverted church music mixed with an ear-splitting hip-hop beat. And the intended effect was one of release and catharsis, but in reality, the effect it created was one of pure panic. Some couldn't handle it. They crouched down on one knee, attempting to catch their breath. Instead, they were plowed over by the bodies surrounding them, knocked to the ground, stepped on, trampled. Mosh pits were collapsing in on themselves, broken feet, broken hands, dislocated shoulders, blood running from the noses and blood pouring

• 20:57Jake Brennan?

  out of mouths, eyes rolling into the backs of heads, blue lips, gray skin. A college student, splayed out on the ground, unconscious, maybe dead. Someone started CPR on her while others screamed for a medic. A nine-year-old boy on top of his father's shoulders, thrown forward when his dad was caught up in the crowd crush. The boy was launched into a mass of arms and legs. One second, he was right there, and the next, he was gone. Things were going very, very badly. But not everyone knew it. If you watch videos taken by those in the crowd, you can hear people screaming "Help" and "Stop the show" in between songs. The footage is chilling. You can see people climbing up on risers to get the attention

• 21:42Jake Brennan?

  of camera operators, yelling to them that the show had to be stopped, that people were dying. But you can also hear other fans making fun of the whistleblowers, telling them to calm down. The crowd was just too big. The music, the lights, the pyro, all of it was waging a constant, all-out assault on the senses.

• 22:03Jake Brennan?

  On stage, Travis Scott was hoisted in the air on a riser of his own. He looked down on the mass of flesh. He watched one kid escape the crowd and climb up one of the trees there on sight. It was like the guy hanging from the balcony in Manhattan all over again. Taking his cue from the kid in the tree, Travis asked, "Who wants to rage?" Some in the crowd roared their approval, while others went hoarse, calling for medical attention. Voices of terror mixed in with voices of rapture, no telling the two apart. But then, for a brief moment, it seemed like things would turn around. Travis noticed an ambulance pushing its way through the audience, en route to someone

• 22:47Jake Brennan?

  who was passed out and needed medical attention. He stopped the show. He watched silently as the fan was helped. Smartphone video of this moment shows actual concern in Travis Scott's face, but also confusion, almost like he's stuck in a moment, as if he went somewhere else. Slowly, though, he came back. Thirty seconds later, he asked everyone who was okay to stick a middle finger in the sky, and the fingers went up. And then, just 60 seconds after he stopped the show, it was back on. The music blasted, the flames erupted, the ambulance slowly made its way out while Travis

• 23:27Jake Brennan?

  was screaming, "I want to make this motherfucking ground shake, goddammit." He was the "maestro" directing the chaos, as The Washington Post once wrote about him, exhibiting that trademark unhinged leaping, as Rolling Stone magazine put it, when they compared Travis Scott's frantic stage presence to Michael Jackson's iconic moonwalk. But Travis Scott didn't do moonwalks. He didn't glide on the ground. He shook it. At 9:38 PM, a little over a half hour into Travis Scott's set, the Houston Fire Department had seen enough. Way too many calls for people being trampled, passing out, in need of CPR and other urgent medical attention.

• 24:09Jake Brennan?

  At that moment, 9:38 PM, Houston Fire officially declared Astroworld, a mass casualty event. Houston PD informed the festival's promoters that the show had to end right now. But the show didn't end. The monster wasn't ready to go back in its box.

• 24:28Speaker 05

  We'll be right back after this word, word, word.

• 24:41Speaker 06

  Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. Imagine your business depends on a system you didn't build and don't fully control. For years, it works perfectly. It's fast, reliable, affordable, so over time, more and more of your operations rely on it. Then one day, the terms change. What once felt flexible now feels difficult to leave. Moving to another provider or bringing those capabilities back under your own control could take years, cost millions, and disrupt the business in the process. That's the challenge of digital sovereignty. Businesses today rely on all sorts of third-party systems: cloud platforms, data pipelines,

• 25:26Speaker 06

  AI models, software tools. Most days, these systems operate quietly in the background, but when something changes, like costs go up or rules shift, organizations are forced to confront how much control and flexibility they actually have. So to understand the challenge up close, I traveled to Paris to speak with IBM's Annapola Assis and Acts as CIO, Giovanni Daniele, two people who think about these questions every day. Hear the full conversation at ibm.com/smarttalks or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 26:40Jake Brennan?

  10:00 PM, 22 minutes after the Houston Fire Department declared Astroworld, a mass casualty event, Travis Scott continued to perform, and he was doing so now with a surprise guest, the Toronto rapper and singer Drake, who joined Travis onstage to euphoric applause from the crowd below. Meanwhile, in that same crowd, medics made a desperate search for those who needed help. The cries of the wounded and the dying rang out, only to be drowned out by the throng. Bodies were being hauled over barricades and passed over shoulders as if they were crowd surfing, but these bodies were limp, and in many cases, the medics on hand were ill-equipped.

• 27:23Jake Brennan?

  No defibrillators, no oxygen, just their bare hands. One medic did have a backboard to transport an unconscious woman, but the backboard had no straps. It was a struggle to carry the body through the crowd of people. Many didn't move aside, others were oblivious, too caught up in the sight and sound of Drake and Travis onstage. The medics lost their grip, and the unconscious woman began to slide out of the backboard with no straps. She hit the ground directly on her head. Elsewhere, another ambulance made of a labored slog through thousands of people. A couple of fans jumped on top of the vehicle and began to dance on it. One concertgoer later compared the sight of people trapped in the crowd to pigs in

• 28:08Jake Brennan?

  a cage. Others said they were literally in hell. At 10:14 PM, 14 minutes after Drake's arrival and now over half an hour since the mass casualty event declaration, Travis Scott finished the last song of the night. Astroworld was officially over, just one minute after a 23-year-old attendee, the festival's first fatality, died at a nearby hospital. Ten people in total died from injuries sustained at Astroworld that night, all of them in their teens or 20s, with the exception of a nine-year-old boy. I told you about him earlier.

• 28:49Jake Brennan?

  Ezra Blunt fell off his father's shoulders when the crowd surge hit them from behind. His father could not find him and did not find him until much later, when Ezra turned up as a John Doe at the hospital. He was put into a medically induced coma and died shortly thereafter. News of the Astroworld tragedy quickly hit the wires. The next morning, Travis Scott issued a statement that read in part, "I'm absolutely devastated by what took place last night. My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival." On TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook, survivors posted videos they had taken during the show that clearly documented the harrowing sequence of events.

• 29:32Jake Brennan?

  With those videos came not just outrage and shock from other users online, but some extremely disturbing interpretations of what was really going on, or so some were saying. The search term "Astroworld sacrifice" began to trend on TikTok. The so-called interpretations followed. Astroworld was a satanic ritual. Astroworld was a "energy harvest," in which Travis Scott put people under a spell and snatched their souls. Just look at the demonic imagery: the flames, the giant eye, the stage that looked like an inverted cross, the shirt Travis was wearing with cartoon figures walking through a portal and emerging with what seemed to be horns on their head.

• 30:17Jake Brennan?

  And this is a sampling of what people were writing on TikTok and Twitter and elsewhere. "If you don't believe that there was nothing demonic about the whole concert, you are spiritually blind, and I pray that God opens your eyes." I'm a big fan of Travis Scott, but this is some demonic-ass shit. In this one, which referred to the fact that Astroworld attendees were required to have proof of a negative COVID test or a COVID vaccination. Quote, "Jab plus 5G in frequency at concert equal dead," unquote. Just to reiterate, the imagery in the video and the firsthand accounts coming out of Astroworld were so fucked up that people were saying jab plus 5G in frequency at concert equal dead.

• 31:02Jake Brennan?

  In other words, that this was some mass conspiracy involving the government and the music industry to kill people at a Travis Scott show. Coming out of the COVID pandemic didn't bring us together. It started to pull us even further apart. Consider this: The very next day, November 6, Troy Finner, Houston's chief of police, held a press conference, a portion of which was spent addressing these wild rumors that were circulating online. He reminded people to be respectful of the families of those who had been killed and to follow the facts and the evidence. He said there were a lot of narratives out there, including one in which Astroworld had been a targeted attack by an individual who was running around and injecting people with drugs.

• 31:46Jake Brennan?

  TMZ was one of the news outlets peddling this narrative, saying, "A source connected to Astroworld told him that the crowd crush was due to the panic that ensued when word got around that some crazy person was stabbing people with a needle and shooting them up." At the press conference, Houston's chief of police did not shut down this particular story. Instead, chief Troy Finner went on to essentially confirm this story. He said that according to medical staff, one of Astroworld's security guards was reaching over to restrain someone in the crowd when he felt a prick in his neck. Immediately, he went unconscious. He needed to be revived with Narcan, which, as you probably know, is used to treat narcotic overdoses.

• 32:28Jake Brennan?

  And the medical staff that examined him confirmed that there was a mark on his neck consistent with a needle prick. So here you have the top-ranking official in Houston's police force seemingly confirming one of the wild rumors floating around online and in the press, which, in turn, caused even more panic and even more confusion. Panic and confusion, two things now keeping the monster of Astroworld alive.

• 33:12Jake Brennan?

  November 10th, 2021. Five days after the tragedy at Astroworld and four days since Houston's chief of police spoke about a festival security guard getting pricked in the neck with a needle. Chief Troy Finner was now giving another press conference, this one in which he walked back his statement from four days prior. During that time, he had spoken directly to the security guard in question, and what the guy had to say for himself was far less sinister than previously believed. Turns out, the security guard was not injected in the neck, but instead hit in the head and knocked unconscious. He woke up shortly afterward in the medical tent, and there was no needle, and no Narcan, and no faceless, nameless demon running around the Astroworld grounds, shooting up unsuspecting

• 33:57Jake Brennan?

  attendees with drugs. Which begs the question, who provided this targeted attack narrative in the first place? Who is the quote "source" connected to Astroworld unquote? Who provided TMZ with this information in the first place? Information which TMZ had since taken down from its website. And speaking of questions, why didn't the show end at 9:38 PM that night when the Houston Fire Department declared it a mass casualty event? When the Houston PD told the promoter to shut it down? Why did Travis Scott keep performing for more than another 30 minutes? There were no clear answers offered to these questions. The cops,

• 34:38Jake Brennan?

  the promoters, the security, the county, Travis Scott, everyone involved passed the buck. The Houston PD said they didn't have the proper authority to shut the show down. Security guards spoke of poor training and worse communication. One Houston City Council member stressed that the event was technically not held on city property, so you know, not their problem. Of course, no one wants to admit they played a part in creating a monster, especially one that takes the lives of 10 people. But someone would be held accountable, and the families of victims were going to make sure of it. Two years later, in 2023, Travis Scott sat in a room in Houston where he was grilled

• 35:18Jake Brennan?

  for eight hours during a civil deposition. A Texas grand jury had declined to indict him on criminal charges, but 387 lawsuits were brought against him, against Live Nation Entertainment and against various subcontractors. 387 lawsuits representing nearly 2,800 victims and totaling billions of dollars in damages, all rolled into a single legal action. These were in addition to the 10 wrongful death lawsuits filed by families of the deceased. Travis Scott maintained his innocence. He said he didn't know how bad it was out there in the crowd, and he wouldn't know the extent of the carnage until the next morning. He

• 36:00Jake Brennan?

  did admit that someone spoke to him during his performance shortly before 10:00 PM, right around the time that Drake joined him onstage. A voice that came through his in-ear monitors and said, "Yo Trav, you gotta wrap it up. It's getting kinda hectic out there." Not, "People are getting crushed. Stop the show." Not, "People can't breathe. They're passing out, maybe dying. Just, it's getting kinda hectic out there." And so Travis Scott wrapped it up. It just took him another 14 minutes, give or take, to do so. Attorneys representing the plaintiffs were skeptical. They couldn't prove if the voice coming through Travis's in-ear monitors had more explicit instructions. But there were other things that were hard to write off, like the fact that if Travis wanted to pocket

• 36:45Jake Brennan?

  an additional $4.5 million coming to him from the concert's livestream, he had to finish his complete set as planned. In other words, ending early meant losing a massive payday. It sounds cynical, I know, but attorneys are paid to be cynical. So these attorneys filed an emergency motion to obtain Travis Scott's phone records, the thinking being that by doing so, perhaps they could uncover some evidence to prove that he knew more than he was letting on. There was just one problem. There was no phone. Travis Scott's phone, his cellphone, the one he owned at the time of Astroworld in 2021, it was gone,

• 37:25Jake Brennan?

  like long gone. And just months after the festival, in January of 2022, while on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico, Travis Scott's cellphone fell into the water and sank all the way down into the murky depths below. But a phone wasn't all Travis Scott lost. In May of this year, 2024, it was reported by the Houston Chronicle that all 10 lawsuits filed by the families of the 10 Astroworld victims had been settled, including the one on behalf of nine-year-old Ezra Blunt. Travis, Live Nation, other companies and individuals, they settled those lawsuits for undisclosed sums and under confidential terms, in many cases just days before the suits were scheduled to go to trial.

• 38:10Jake Brennan?

  The news came mere months after the revelation that Astroworld organizers miscalculated a state fire code when planning the event. According to that fire code, each person at the show needed seven square feet to prevent overcrowding. So by that math, capacity should have been about 34,500 people. Instead, the organizers mistakenly settled on five square feet per person, resulting in the 50,000 fans that were ticketed. That's a difference of more than 15,000 people. 15,000 extra people. That's no small detail. But the devil is in the details.

• 38:52Jake Brennan?

  That may be true, but for thousands of people on a warm Texas night in November, the devil was at Astroworld, and that was a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is DisgraceLand.

• 39:20Jake Brennan?

  All right, guys. Thanks for checking out this incredibly dark episode on Travis Scott. Before I get to the question of the week, I want to remind you guys, we're doing this livestream event. I want you to be a part of it. It's on October 9th. I'm gonna be telling the story of Blink-182's Tom DeLonge and his work with UFO Disclosure. And there's a lot of creepy government cover-up and conspiracy attached to this. Go to moment.co/disgraceland to get your tickets. That's for October 9th. You guys can be a part of the show with me. Thank you for checking out this episode on Travis Scott and Astroworld, where 10 people died, 10. So, question of the week for you guys is, what is music's darkest day? Was it this disaster? Was it a plane crash, a riot, a murder spree, serial killing? What

• 40:04Jake Brennan?

  was it? There is so much evil in the history of music that the choices here are kinda endless when you think about it. So let me know what day or event was the darkest for music history. 617-906-6638. Leave me a voicemail, send me a text, and let me know. You can also reach me at @disgracelandpod as well on Instagram, X, and Facebook. Leave a review for the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and win some free merch. All right, here comes some credits. DisgraceLand was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a DisgraceLand All-Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to

• 40:49Jake Brennan?

  disgracelandpod.com/membership. Members can listen to every episode of DisgraceLand ad-free. Plus, you'll get one brand-new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com/membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook @disgracelandpod, and on YouTube at youtube.com/atdisgracelandpod. Rock-a'rolla.

• 41:29Speaker 07

  I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast, the true crime comedy podcast all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on an amazing guest. Ooh, I scammed them. What? I could talk to you for an hour. You're a generational yapper, like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.