February 8, 1993: Alice in Chains, Nazi In Pains

February 8, 1993: Layne Staley of the rock band Alice in Chains punches an audience member at a concert in Stockholm, Sweden.

He deserved it. He was a neo-Nazi.

Alice in Chains were formed in Seattle in 1987, and became part of the city's hard-rock "grunge" music scene. Lead guitarist Jerry Cantrell and rhythm guitarist Layne Staley traded lead vocals, Mike Starr played bass guitar, and Sean Kinney played drums. As grunge became popular in 1990, they rose with local bands Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Mudhoney.

On February 8, 1993, "AiC" were playing Cirkus, a venue in Stockholm, Sweden, when Staley saw a neo-Nazi skinhead in the audience, harassing other fans and performing Fascist salutes. Toward the end of the song "It Ain't Like That," Staley noticed the man, stopped the performance, and had security bring him up on stage.

As soon as the man was on stage, Staley punched and slapped him, before instructing security to throw him off the stage. Following the altercation, Staley yelled into the microphone, "Fucking Nazis die!"

The man reported Staley to the Swedish police. However, when police investigated, they found the man had been harassing others, and his own brother defended the band's actions. The authorities praised Staley and released him immediately.

For the record: Sweden stayed neutral during World War II, and Nazi Germany left them alone. That was not the case with the rest of Scandinavia: Norway and Denmark resisted, and the Nazis invaded and took over before the Allies kicked them out; Iceland was part of a union with Denmark, declaring independence during the war and opposing the Nazis; and Finland fought the Soviet Union, so the Nazis treated them as allies.

Staley became addicted to drugs, as did his girlfriend, Demri Parrott. In 1996, she died of an overdose. Emotionally, he never recovered. After attending the 1997 Grammy Awards with his bandmates, he rarely appeared in public again, and followed her in 2002. Starr also died from an overdose, in 2011. As of February 8, 2022, Cantrell and Kinney are still alive, touring as Alice in Chains with Mike DuVall, formerly of No Walls on rhythm guitar; and Mike Inez, who previously worked with Ozzy Osbourne, on bass.

Cirkus, a 1,650-seat theater, opened on the island of Djurgården in Stockholm in 1892. It is still in operation.

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February 8, 1993 was a Monday. Baseball and football were out of season. There were 4 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 120-115 in overtime at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. Patrick Ewing scored 40 points.

* The Washington Bullets beat the Houston Rockets, 106-100 at The Summit in Houston. It's now the Central Campus of televangelist Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church.

* The Utah Jazz beat the Orlando Magic, 108-96 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.

* And the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Dallas Mavericks, 108-100 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

And there were 4 games in the NHL:

* The New Jersey Devils beat their arch-rivals, the New York Rangers, 5-4 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands.

* The St. Louis Blues beat the Hartford Whalers, 3-1. This was the 2nd season of a 2-year experiment in which the NHL played several neutral-site games, in a search for cities for expansion franchises. But this game was at the Peoria Civic Center in Peoria, Illinois. It was a sellout: 9,013 seats.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Boston Bruins, 4-0 -- at The Omni in Atlanta. Attendance: 12,572. Not a good sign, given that both teams were good at the time. Nevertheless, the Atlanta Thrashers debuted in 1999, once Atlanta got a new arena. They lasted 12 seasons.

* And the Ottawa Senators beat the Buffalo Sabres, 4-2 at the Ottawa Civic Centre (now the TD Place Arena).