PLYMOUTH — In rhythm with the music being pumped out by the tribute band Foreigners Journey, John Guarnieri initially thought the lights flashing on the walls of The Flying Monkey theater Saturday night were part of the show.
But his wife, Julie, who’d been a volunteer firefighter in the communities of Plainfield and Etna, knew better: the lights, he recalled her telling him, were part of an activated fire alarm. It was about 9:10 p.m.
“And then,” said Guarnieri, “I noticed some employees hauling down the aisle and I said, ‘let’s get out of here.’ ”
The Guarnieris, who live in Thornton, exited the venue and were joined on the west side of Main Street across from The Flying Monkey by some of the other 448 people who had come to the sold-out performance.
“I believe it was during the song ‘Urgent,’ which is from Foreigner’s 1981 album “4,” that Guarnieri said he realized that something was not right.
“You could not hear the fire alarm because of the music; you could only see the lights, which were kind of going with the music, so it made sense. It didn’t seem abnormal,” he said.
There was a smell of smoke, but Guarnieri said that concert-goers may have thought it came from “somebody who might have left popcorn in the microwave.”
But once outside, “You could see the flames and it looked like The Flying Monkey was on fire,” he said.
It was actually Peppercorn Natural Food Store and Manny’s Downtown Pizza that were burning, according to Plymouth Fire Chief Tom Morrison.
In a statement on the department’s Facebook page, the chief said the fire was reported simultaneously at the food store, which is now a separate part of The Flying Monkey and is located immediately north of it, and at the pizza shop, which is north of it. The blaze is under investigation by the New Hampshire Fire Marshal’s Office.
Neither of the buildings was occupied, but the fire’s proximity to The Flying Monkey led to the theater’s evacuation and the summoning of fire units from 17 nearby communities.
According to Plymouth Fire-Rescue, whose station is about a half mile away from The Flying Monkey on Highland Street, the fire did not damage the theater, except with smoke, but did seriously threaten it.
Morrison said a Plymouth firefighter was treated at Speare Memorial Hospital for a shoulder injury and released, but no one else was hurt.
Plymouth firefighters at the scene Sunday said they wrapped up operations around 3:30 that morning, although several observers noted that the fire briefly rekindled four hours later. A reactivated fire alarm brought firefighters back for a third time around 10:30.
Guarnieri, who owns and operates 603 Karate in Northfield, commended the staff of The Flying Monkey and Constantine Maroulis, the lead singer of Foreigners Journey on Saturday night, for doing “an amazing job of getting people informed quickly and keeping everybody calm.”
He joked that the audience was calm because it was mostly a mature one, with, him, at age 48, being among the youngest in attendance.
“I sent Constantine a message, and he posted it on his page, thanking him for his leadership,” said Guarnieri, “because once he realized what was going on, he just immediately switched gears and was stressing to everybody to be calm and help each other.”
Paul Kochanski and Joe Pettengill, who are, respectively, the founder/keyboardist and bassist for Foreigners Journey, said their 8-year old band has played The Flying Monkey many times, with both calling it “a very good venue” in which to perform.
“We had just started the second set, and were about four songs in,” said Kochanski, with Pettengill interjecting that it was at that moment when someone from The Flying Monkey approached Maroulis and directed him to tell the audience “‘to leave cordially,’ and they did,” but Maroulis wasn’t told there was a fire.
“We waited for the people to leave,” said Pettengill, and shortly thereafter, a Flying Monkey employee came back to say there was a fire next door.
“I said, ‘oh,’” Pettengill said, “And I literally grabbed my two guitars without the cases,” while Kochanski said, “I left with my keytar strapped on me.”
The men said their band stayed overnight with friends in the area and then returned Sunday to retrieve the rest of their equipment, none of which was damaged.
They said they could smell smoke in the theater, but observed no fire damage.
Kochanski conceded that everyone at The Flying Monkey survived a close call on Saturday night, with Pettengill adding “We didn’t feel we were in danger until we left the building,” and saw the flames.
A nationally touring tribute band, which recently performed in Nashua and is now on the way to concerts in Leesburg, Virginia, and then to Philadelphia, Foreigners Journey will return to The Flying Monkey “and hopefully we can finish our set” from Saturday night, said Kochanski.
Among the many people who came out Sunday to survey the fire scene was an older gentleman who asked to be identified only as “Dick.”
A Pennsylvania native, “I started coming here (Plymouth) in 1954,” he said, “and these buildings (that were involved in the fire) were here. They’re old and the wood is dried out and it’s a miracle that the whole neighborhood didn’t go.”
Guarnieri, who said he grew up with the music of Foreigner and Journey, intends to see Foreigners Journey again, noting that “they were fantastic” on Saturday.
“This (the fire) is a freak thing,” he said, and likely will not happen again.
“My final line in my (social media post) was that a little faith has been restored in humanity,” he said.
