It appears there was another video taken at The Station on the night of the fire which is still in existence--but which few people have ever seen. Here's the story:
The band, Trip, got an enthusiastic reaction from the Station crowd during their six-song set. Dancing even broke out, not something this newly-formed trio was always seeing. And this sent Bill Long, Trip's road manager, into action.
Bill Long: "The vibe we felt that night was so incredible that I jumped on stage . . . and video-taped the fans because they were having so much fun."
Survivors like Shamus Horan and Lisa Johnson and Jeff Ward all mentioned seeing Long video-taping in the witness statements. Jeff Ward gave a statement to a Warwick police detective, who wrote this: "He did recall seeing a white male with long hair who was wearing a black T-shirt with the word 'Chopper' written inside a cross, but does not recall what the man was doing by the stage. He believes that the man had a stage pass of some sort around his neck and may have been using a video camera."
Cut to some 50 minutes later, with fire taking off from the foam
Bill Long: "I had some personal stuff. A digital camera, video camera, guitars, a laptop computer--expensive stuff. I went to gather it together."
But the fire was moving way too fast. So Long snapped one quick photo of the fire, stuffed the camera in his pocket, and left the rest of the equipment behind to head for safety. Flames were now racing across the ceiling of the club.
Okay, so this much we knew. And, yeah, I'd always bemoaned the loss of Long's video-camera, which must have caught many of the now familiar faces who were there to see GW.
But just recently, I was reviewing Trip bassist Jason Williams's 3-06-03 interview with ATF agents. And one agent wrote this:
"Williams believes that Trip's manager Bill Long had videotaped the performance. Williams does not know where the tape is now, but he had viewed it back [home] in Vancouver and believes [band leader] Michael Shapiro has the tape. Television stations in Portland and Los Angeles had requested the tape, but they had not given it to them."
Well, it appears that Michael Shapiro also had a video camera, and Long would sometimes use IT to tape Trip. So all I can conclude is that THAT video camera must have gone back to Shapiro and the bus sometime before GW's performance.
PS--I've never come across any mention of what became of the single still-photo Long took.