Pearl Jam said on Wednesday (July 26) that if they'd received word earlier of the dangerous crowd situation at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark, lives could have been saved.

Eight people died when they slipped in mud, fell to the ground and were crushed during the band's performance June 30. Another man died July 5 of injuries sustained at the show.

"We stopped the show immediately upon being informed that there might be a problem, even though we were asked to wait until the nature of the problem could be determined," the band said in a statement, which went on to say that at least 15 minutes passed between the time that festival security became aware of the problem and the time the band was notified.

"It is our belief that if we had been informed of a potential problem at the moment it was first identified by festival security, we could have stopped the show earlier and lives could have been saved," the statement said.

Pearl Jam pledged to take an active role in the further investigation of the tragedy, saying they don't feel the preliminary inquiry went far enough.

"When something this disastrous occurs, when this many lives are lost, it is essential that every aspect be examined thoroughly and from all angles," the statement said. "To date, we don't feel this has been done.

"We will do everything possible to make sure that during this next phase of the investigation, every possible factor that might have contributed to the deaths and injuries at the festival is uncovered and scrutinized."

Crucial Time Elapsed

Daniel Mossberg, a Swedish fan who was at the concert, said there was definitely a lag between the time the problem arose and the time the band stopped so that singer Eddie Vedder could ask the crowd to step back from the stage.

"The band played three or four songs after the time we in the audience noticed something was wrong," Mossberg said.

He challenged police reports that crowd-surfing contributed to the accidents, saying audience members were lifting people up from the ground and passing them over for their own safety.

"They were trying to rescue people, they weren't putting people up there for the fun of it," Mossberg said.

From the beginning of the show, the crowd, which police and festival organizers estimate at 50,000, was packed together so tightly that it was difficult to move and impossible to mosh or dance, Mossberg said. "That should have been the first sign to security that there was something wrong, because nobody was moving," he said.

In Pearl Jam's statement, the band questions the timeliness and adequacy of the response by emergency medical technicians, and questions whether the on-site medical staff was sufficient enough to respond to medical emergencies.

Nina Crowley, executive director of the anti-censorship organization MassMic, was at the Roskilde Festival helping run a free-speech booth and had a security pass that gave her access to the press area, she said.

"I didn't see any ambulances in the backstage area," Crowley said. She also said that her booth's organizer had received an official report that only one doctor was on site.

Roskilde Police Commissioner Uffe Kornerup said last week that there was a "prominent amount of doctors behind the Orange Stage," where Pearl Jam played. Kornerup was unavailable for comment Wednesday.

Visibility May Have Been Hampered

In the statement, Pearl Jam also call for an investigation into the "poor visibility of the audience from the stage and front of the barricade, making it difficult to identify potential problems in the crowd from the stage."

Police said earlier that a combination of sweat and humidity created a fog over the crowd that hampered visibility. Mossberg said that there was a fog, but not so thick it was impossible to see.

Mossberg, who was standing near the front, said he first noticed a lot of pressure after "Evenflow" (RealAudio excerpt), the sixth song of the set. "Then I looked over my shoulder, because suddenly there was no pressure," he said. "A group of 15 or 20 people had fallen."

When the next song began, Mossberg said there was a "big push" from in front of him, and he fell backwards along with 20 or 30 others. "I was on top of at least two people, and there were at least two or three people on top of me," he said. "I was down there for two songs, 'MFC' and 'Red Mosquito.' It was hard to breathe, and I screamed to the guy next to me to get me the f--- out of here. He started pulling me, and I got up by a miracle."

Mossberg said he tried screaming to security and the band, but the crowd was too loud.

Leif Skov, the official spokesperson for the festival, did not return phone calls. Pearl Jam and their management had no further comment beyond the official statement.

The Roskilde Festival has been held annually since 1971 on a farm about 25 miles west of Copenhagen, Denmark. All proceeds are distributed by the Roskilde Charity Society to Danish and international charities, including Amnesty International and the World Wildlife Federation.