On August 8, 2004, several people taking one of the many tours of the Chicago River got way more than they bargained for. In fact, it could be said that they had a downright shitty experience. And it all had to do with the Dave Matthews Band. No, their music isn't that bad(I actually think their stuff is pretty good, but that's just me talking), but the judgment of one of their bus drivers might have been.
On that day the bus was going throughout the city and crossing the Kinzie Street bridge when driver Stefan Wohl decided to empty the septic tanks on the bus. Now dumping waste into the Chicago River is a time-honored tradition just as old as the corruption(it was even the indirect cause of reversing the river in the first place), but being that it was 2004 and not 1904, that kind of stuff was frowned upon. Additionally, that kind of stuff is really frowned upon when there happens to be an open-air tour boat crossing underneath the bridge at the moment you let loose. Long story short, about 800 pounds of human waste fell onto the boat, the Chicago Architecture Foundation had to issue refunds as well as decontaminate the boat, the bus driver was fired, and the band wound up paying around $300,000 in restitution to various sources.
Ironically, the band was nowhere close to its bus at the time of the incident. Dave Matthews himself was on a plane and didn't know a thing about it. All he knew was that some bus had dumped its tanks on top of a tour bus, which seemed slightly humorous at the time-until he touched down and realized that one of his buses was responsible for the incident. While definitely remorseful, he does offer some thoughts on it. "If Snoop Dogg had done it, it probably would have raised his record sales, but it applies differently to everyone".
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