In 1989, the Bangles gave a free concert for the opening celebration of the Sam Houston Tollway in Houston, Texas. The concert was held on the tollway itself so that made it a novel event. We arrived a couple hours early so that we could be close to the stage. Like so many other people we had our blanket to put on the pavement, used it to stake out our turf near the stage, and waited. We were a little naive; it wasn't going to be a picnic in the park. Just before the concert started, people began moving in from the back, and it was very quickly standing room only.

A few songs went by and everything was just wonderful (except that I was not on Michael's side of the stage). But it was about the third or fourth song, the Bangles played something pretty lively, the crowd started dancing, and near the end of the song I felt the earth move under my feet. (No, that wasn't the name of the song; that's literally what happened.) The stage and most of the crowd was on a section of roadway that was actually a bridge. Now I'm an engineer and I know about things like forced resonance and I knew of the infamous collapse of the Tacoma Narrows bridge in Washington. So I immediately thought of that and also recalled that in high school when our band marched downtown in parades, the city wouldn't let us march over the bridge that crossed the river. We always had to "break cadence" and walk across. So I feared that the crowd at the concert would eventually discover that they could shake the whole bridge if they tried. They did. On the next song, the bridge motion was quite noticeable. Now the crowd was really into it. Another song and with the rhythm of the band keeping everyone moving in unison, I swear that bridge moved up and down at least a foot in the middle of the frenzy. I had been looking around at the crowd but when I looked to the stage I noticed that Susanna had disappeared. The stage was shaking so badly that lights were falling from the structure above. When it was over, Susanna returned to the stage, approached her mike, and explained her earlier retreat, "I forgot that I'm not in California; you don’t have earthquakes."

Between songs after that, Susanna would plead with the crowd to not vibrate the bridge. They even stopped one song in the middle and begged the crowd to stop.

If I had been alone, I would have braved the remainder of the show, but I had my two little daughters with me (3 & 6) and I didn't want their little lives to end so soon in a possible disaster. So we left before it was over. It took a long time to make it back through the crowd, so we heard a few more songs and even more pleading from Susanna. By the time we reached the parking lot of a nearby mall the music had stop altogether. I don't know if the concert ended normally, if they stopped it prematurely as a means of crowd control, or if maybe they were taking a short break.

Months later, I read an interview with Susanna and she was asked if there were any concerts that she could remember for being unique and she mentioned the concert on the bridge in Houston. I was there.

Here's the story, from Debbi's perspective (from Debbi Answers Your questions, Part 2 from her biopages):

Q: What's the strangest thing that happened to you (or the band) while on tour?

Debbi: Well, actually, this one's kind of a well-known story - I know we've talked about it before, we all remember it so vividly! I know I won't forget it (laughs) ... It was in 1989, there was this new toll road going up in Houston, Texas and they had the Bangles come do a free concert for the opening ceremony. They were going to shut down the highway and put up a stage for us on the overpass. And we all thought maybe 20 thousand people would show up, but when we got there it was more like 75 thousand people just crammed onto this road to see us! So, we started playing, and at first it was all going along fine, but then someone in the band said to the crowd, 'put your hands together' and 75 thousand people all started clapping and stomping at the same time! The whole overpass started rocking and swaying - it felt like an earthquake. Worst of all was our light rig, it was completely shaking apart over our heads! And we were trying our best to keep calm, you know, and the structural engineer was even there, the guy who designed the overpass, so we figured, 'well, if he's sticking around it can't be all that bad'. Then he ran away and so then we all got really scared. We pretty much figured it was more or less the end of the Bangles (laughing). Y'know, headlines start flashing through your mind... Susanna, mid-song, decided she'd had enough and ran off the stage and made a break for the tour bus. The three of us finished the rest of the song, said 'We have to go,' and took off! It's funny now, but at the time it was really frightening. We actually thought we were going to die.