My Favorite Concert Venue Is Closing

I've been to some great shows at Ridglea Theater in Ft. Worth. Kamelot & Leaves' Eyes, Into Eternity, Epica and Symphony X, & Lazarus A.D., Unearth, and Testament. It has also hosted many great thrash, Euro-power, and various other genre shows. Unfortunatly, they're shutting it down and now the only way to see good concerts at small venues is to go to downtown Dallas (a place that scares the hell out of me late at night when I'm alone). This sucks because that place has become my venue of choice for concerts. A great place tha plays good music goes up in smoke while dance clubs and other crap like that thrives. Guess I'll have to either stick to big shows or take my chance in the land of gangs, drunks, and lunatics (as you can see, I HATE downtown Dallas).

Seen many a good show there myself. The Bronco Bowl is gone too I believe. The Palladium is a great place to see a show also. A good friend of mine lives within walking distance of Deep Ellum & we hang out there & check out shows all the time.

I feel your pain, dude. Same thing happened to me in the late 90s when my favorite venue (the Birch Hill in Old Bridge, NJ) shut its doors. I had seen a ton of great bands there over the span of about five years (Raven, Anvil, Kix, Savatage, Ace Frehley, Joan Jett, Dee Snider's SMFs, Warrior Soul, etc., etc.). I believe there's a condo complex on the site now.

That was my "home" base when I moved back to New Jersey after college. I went to college in New York City so obviously I had my pick of venues then. When I moved back home though, going all the way to NYC for a concert was kind of a pain in the ass so I generally didn't want to be bothered. So it was nice to have a place in my own state.

During the 90s Birch Hill was the only place within a semi-reasonable driving distance (90 minutes) that still booked hard rock and metal acts outside of NYC. (There was also the Fastlane in Asbury Park, but that was an even longer drive and quite frankly, Asbury Park was not the nicest place to be after dark either.)

There were a couple of smaller clubs closer to my home that might book an occasional national act, but for the most part the local clubs were all tribute acts and cover bands. Nothin' against tribute bands, Lord knows I went to see more than my share of 'em back then but once in a while it was nice to see a "real" band that had albums out and everything.

Now that I'm old and semi-retired I don't go to concerts much anyway, so it doesn't make much difference anway, but I was seriously bummed to see the Birch Hill go...

Man, I miss that place... (Sniffle...sniffle...sob...) Anybody got a tissue?

Hamer12 wrote:

Seen many a good show there myself. The Bronco Bowl is gone too I believe. The Palladium is a great place to see a show also. A good friend of mine lives within walking distance of Deep Ellum & we hang out there & check out shows all the time.

Deep Ellum is a great place but unfortunatly, it's in downtown Dallas. Last time I was there for Galactic Cowboys and couldn't find the lot I parked in and by the time I found it, I was in a barely lit parking lot and I had the only car there and a gropu of suspicious people were heading in my direction. I'm neither tough or menacing looking so it makes it harder for me to walk around in a place like that at night by myself.

They closed down the Astoria here in London about a year ago. That was one of my favourite venues. There's plenty left, but that one was particularly iconic.

Sorry to hear about that, DallasBlack.

Ha!! That might have been us!!!

I feel your pain, DB. Along with Fat Freddy, I too shed a tear when Birch Hill shut it's doors. Even though it had been awhile since I'd gone, when I heard the news, it was like losing an old friend that you hadn't seen in many years.

And last summer, they closed the Spectrum, which was a large sporting arena where many, many classic concerts were held. If you grew up in the Philly area back in the 70's thru the 90's (and until last September), if you saw a big act in the city, it was at the Spectrum.

It always sucks when a great venue closes.

DUDE IT ALWAYS SUCKS TO LOSE A GOOD VENUE. OKC just lost the Selah Music Venue. They actually paid bands 250 a night. Sorry for the all caps.

NOOOO!! This is the first I'm hearing of this!!

I can get to that venue in 2 hours and 15 mintues. It's perfect because like DB said it's not in Downtown Dallas, it's on the outer edge of Fort Worth. That's been my venue as well for quite a few years.

Noooo!! That figures.

On the plus side, Bank Of America decided not to turn it into a bank.

Brings back memories when they closed down my favorite arena back in the late 80s called the Hollywood Sportitorium....(hey GN'R fans, that's SPORTITORIUM, not Sportarium!)

Yea, in my hometown, Hollywood, FL I seen a lot of good shows there, my favorite was Motley Crue and Guns N' Roses Nov 1987, plus AC/DC twice, Def Leppard, Ratt, Poison, and even the last ever concert there, Judas Priest and Cinderella.

Funny thing I remember the local rock station at the time (WSHE 103.5 "She's Only Rock N' Roll") was giving trivia winners a piece of the rubble as a prize after the big bulldoze leveled it...I could never get thru and missed out on the souvineer.......now, the station is long gone, but since I haven't lived there since 1996, I have no idea where anything is anymore......but I sure miss the "Sporto."