Could it happen here? In Worcester?!
Written by admin on February 10th, 2010By Rosalie Tirella
My guy and I went into Boston last night to hear YES at the House of Blues. While we stood in line in the cold (especially for Boston) for a half hour (even with tix!), paid an exorbitant amount of dough for parking, and then lingered/swayed/rocked out on a cold, grey concrete floor listening to this iconic prog rock band, I kept asking him (much to his annoyance):
“Why the hell can’t this be happening in Worcester?”
So, Worcester, why couldn’t a couple of aging boomers grab supper in Wormtown and then head to a mid-sized concert venue and rock out to YES? We could have saved time, money and most likely parked our aging arses on fairly cushy seats if the YES concert had been held, say, in the FUCKIN’ PALLADIUM!
Yes, whatever happened to the fuckin’ Palladium? Or even the august Worcester Auditorium? Perfect places for mid-level/once great acts/still great but under-appreciated acts to play. Boston has plenty of places for these types of groups, the House of Blues being one of them. So does Providence. So does Northampton. So does fuckin’ Concord, New Hamster!!
But no! NOT Worcester! It couldn’t happen here!
Well, we used to! It used to happen here! All the time!
In the good ol days you could hear (I know I did - and have some great memories) rock/pop icons like Warren Zevon, Harry Chapin, Steppin Wolf, Chuck Berry, Art Garfunkel, The Band at our Auditorium and the old Worcester Palladium (I forgot what it used to be called). The old Palladium is where all those groups that you couldn’t quite pigeon hole used to play in the 1970s and even 1980s. You know, the groups like YES, that are still great, still have a loyal fan base, withyoung kids getting turned onto them - but still can’t draw 7,000 folks. Groups that can draw a couple of thousand folks. Rock groups too big for clubs but not big enough for arenas and places like our crappy Centrum. A mid-sized rock concert hall.
We used to have one - even two, if you count the auditorium.
What do we have now? The Pallidium, which has become a mecca for every goth, dark, disturbed heavy metal band and their dark, disturbed, uber-pierced fans. Just looking at the lines for Palladium concerts makes me think of the apocalypse. These kids do not celebrate life. These kids have skull lamps on their bedroom night stands.
Very depressing. Very depressing that every diviant manages to slither her/his way to Worcester and that great musicians play everywhere BUT Wormtown!
10
PM
Silly, you know why. Because it is Worcester! The city that refused an opportunity for Scorsese to shoot here, the city that spent more to build an empty, unused skating rink than it did to buy an abandoned mall, the city where its [city] council and city manager voted themselves a huge raise when we faced economic melt down, the city that abandons its people in favor of back door deals with developers of empty go-nowhere buildings. Why couldn’t it be Worcester? ‘ Might as well ask, why do any of us even bother to stay here?
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AM
I’m with you. My first concert experience as a kid was Steppenwolf at the E.M. Loews Theater for the performing arts (now The Palladium), Halloween night, 1980. That place used to rock back in the early 70’s and early 80’s. Zappa played there, B.B., Todd Rundgren - I can go on and on.
I’ll never understand why all these bands that you mentioned don’t make a tour stop in Worcester. They play the Webster Theater in Hartford all the time and that place is a fucking toilet!