MATT DRISCOLL: AUTOMATIC SPRINKLER SYSTEMS AREN'T CHEAP >>>

Great White has been influential on our lives in a number of ways â€" whether you like it or not. The band’s style of hair dominated the ’80s â€" which I suppose they can’t take credit for alone â€" but more recently the band’s pyrotechnic disaster in 2003 that killed 100 people continues to have lasting repercussion.

Locally, one of the places those repercussions can be felt is Hell’s Kitchen. Since the creation of RCW 19.27.500 through 19.27.520, which require music venues all over Washington to upgrade to automatic sprinkler systems by Dec. ’09, the Kitchen has been scrapping and clawing, trying desperately to raise the pile of money needed for such an expensive upgrade.

Sunday, Nov. 9, Hell’s Kitchen will host another in a long line of benefits designed to do just that. The bands Left Alive, Eterna Nocturna, Darkness Stole the Sky, Unhailoed, Beneath All Chaos, Ken Parker and Falling of Ages will provide the face-melting rock, and every single $8 cover charge collected at the all-ages show will go toward the purchase of a new sprinkler system for the Kitchen.

“What happened is RCW 19.27.500 through 19.27.520, which is a direct result of the tragic fire in Rhode Island started by Great White and their poor decisions of when and where to use cheap pyrotechnics,” says Hell’s Kitchen booking agent and head honcho Flash Connel. “The estimates we have received start at $60,000 and go up from there. This includes $25,000 to the City of Tacoma just to get enough pressure to our meter to install a sprinkler system! How messed up is that?”

That’s incredibly messed up, if you ask this hack journalist. Though it’s obvious the intent of the law is to protect show-goers, one has to wonder if the impact on small businesses was fully considered â€" or considered at all. Protecting show-goers is important, but charging a place like Hell’s Kitchen $25,000 â€" which will go to the City of Tacoma â€" just so the club will have enough water pressure to make the required sprinkler system work seems like a poorly conceived law, to say the least. So far, Connel estimates Hell’s Kitchen has raised around $3,000.

“We have a donation bucket available near the front door at all times,” says Connel. “I am confident that we will be able to make it happen, but it’s not going to be an easy road.”

Do your part, Tacoma. Keep your eye out for future sprinkler system benefits at Hell’s Kitchen, and show up in force today for one hell of a show. It’s the least you can do.

[Hell's Kitchen, 4 p.m., $8, all ages, bar w/ I.D., 3839 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.759.6003]