Disturbed’s Pyrotechnics Damage Bulls’ Championship Banners at Chicago Concert
The NBA team's Michael Jordan-era championship banners won't be displayed for the remainder of the season.
David Draiman of Disturbed performs at Afas Live in Amsterdam, Netherlands on May 7, 2019.
The Chicago Bulls’ six NBA championship banners have been removed from the United Center after sustaining damage from pyrotechnics during a Disturbed concert.
In a statement released on Friday (March 14), the United Center confirmed that the banners — earned during Michael Jordan’s reign in the 1990s — sustained “minor damage” during a March 8 performance featuring Disturbed, Three Days Grace and Sevendust.
“United Center is currently working with the Bulls to explore options to repair these banners,” a United Center spokesperson wrote in a statement, according to the Associated Press. “While the banners will not be in place for the remainder of this season, we do anticipate them being back in place next season.”
Fan-captured video from the concert, posted to social media, shows the Bulls’ banners being blown by flames during Disturbed’s set.
The rock band, originally from Chicago, had not yet commented on the incident at press time.
The Bulls’ championship banners — which commemorate the team’s titles from 1991-93 and 1996-98 — will be absent for the rest of the 2024-25 season. The Chicago arena had “originally hoped the banners would be returned to the rafters by Thursday’s game against the Brooklyn Nets,” the Chicago Tribune reports, but the repairs won’t be completed until the end of the season.
The banners were taken down prior to the Bulls’ home game against the Indiana Pacers on Monday. Neither team had commented on their removal until the end of the week.
The championship banners of the United Center’s other sports tenant, NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks, were not damaged during the show.
