A Klezmer band was playing a 'joyous' Jewish wedding song when gunfire erupted at Highland Park parade, tuba player says. "It was surreal."

Police vehicles at the scene of the Fourth of July parade shooting in Highland Park, Illinois on Monday.
Jim Vondruska/Getty Images

A band was playing a "joyous" Jewish wedding song when parade-goers began fleeing gunshots.
"It was surreal," the band's tuba player Howard Prager told Insider.
"This is us at our worst and we have to turn this around," Prager said.

The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band was playing a joyful Jewish wedding song, and parade-goers should have been dancing. Instead they were running, and the band had no idea why.

The band played on, not realizing that gunfire had erupted just around the corner from them in Highland Park, Illinois, killing six people and injuring at least 24.

"It was surreal," Howard Prager, the band's tuba player, told Insider. "You know, you see those disaster movies on TV and in theaters where people are running away from something and here we are going towards it, not having any idea what was happening."

Among the horrifying videos to emerge from the July 4 shooting was one of terrified parade-goers fleeing the scene as the band, unaware of the shooting, continued to play.

—Lynn Sweet (@lynnsweet) July 4, 2022

At the start of the parade, Prager said he could see people on the sidewalks, standing and sitting in chairs, and looking happy to be at a parade after years of COVID cancellations. The band had been on the parade route for about five minutes when they started seeing people running toward their truck.

Prager thinks he heard "some pops," but didn't think it was gunfire. His first thought when he saw people running was that there might have been a July 4 giveaway. Then the piano player said: "Something's not right."

Soon, the seven band members realized they needed to turn their truck around and head to safety, in the opposite direction.

The Klezmer music they were playing is traditional eastern European Jewish music, Prager said, and Chicago is a big center for its revival. Although it's often in minor keys, Prager said it is still "very joyful."

The wedding song they were playing at the time, "Freilach von der Chuppah," is a joyous and upbeat song, he added.

"It was just strange to be playing and then seeing this happen," he said of the scene, which is "forever etched in my mind. We saw parents with baby strollers. We saw kids, we saw people of all ages, and they were all running."

Prager said he now feels "shock and numb and sorrow" for those who were killed, injured and affected by the shooting. "And I thank God that … I'm OK and that we're OK."

Highland Park has a large Jewish population. The band has performed in concerts, weddings and special events since 1983, but Prager said they have frequently played at parades in Highland Park and Skokie, Illinois, because they have so many fans there.

Prager said July 4 is one holiday where Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs can celebrate together the birth of the nation, liberty and justice for all. "To think that someone was sick enough to use this as an occasion to unleash violence and mayhem and murder is to me, so unbelievable, so wrong," he said.

Prager wrote the book "Make Someone's Day: Becoming a Memorable Leader in Work and Life." He said it's about how we need to support one another, "and the only thing I can think of is I need to work harder getting this message out."

"This is us at our worst and we have to turn this around," he said. "We've got to stop this. This has got to come to an end because none of us deserve to live in fear."

Read the original article on Business Insider