Is Old Music Killing New Music?
I was a sophomore at Maryland and we saw them at the old dump Capital Centre. A dump it was indeed, but we caught a ****-ton of shows there because it was 15 mins from campus.
I remember wedging 7 idiots (including me) into my Camaro for the Van Halen concert because the derelict with the bigger car let it break down. I dared even one of those drunk ******* to spill a single drop. Told them if one spilled, they all died :hihi:
It's hard to believe that the old Capital Centre was still hosting occasional Capitals/Bullets games well into the 90's long after the Bullets had officially "moved" from Baltimore to D.C. in the mid-late 70's to play in D.C.'s Chinatown. Being located near one of this nation's biggest markets, the DMV, and given the ultra-important context of it being located in the nation's capitol sort of provided arenas like Capitol over-sized influence than most other arenas elsewhere in the country at the time.
In the late 70's/early 80's, it wasnt just major, established rock acts like Van Halen, Priest, Iron Maiden (though in 1981, pre-Mark of the Beast, they hadn't totally reached the top-tier), Ozzy, Bowie, Led Zeppelin and Journey but also most of the classic UK "punk rock" bands like the Damned, Sex Pistols, and The Clash played some of their first US concerts at the Capitol Centre (IIRC, the Clash made quite an impression on local music scene, the burgeoning hardcore D.C. punk scene).
The Sex Pistols ill-fated 1978 U.S. concert tour almost didnt happen. BTW, Terps due to nagging typical passport customs delays, I remember reading that a Carter administration official stepped in after Malcolm Mclauren's insistence and pushed through the temporary work visas that would allow the band to tour the U.S.
The thing about the early 80's D.C. hardcore punk scene like Black Flag, the Replacements, Minutemen is that once you "reached" venues like the Capitol, you have officially "made it" as a local DMV professional musical act or band. You moved beyond the dive bars/clubs scene circuit into the big time as your fan base is substantiatively large to be signed to a major record label.