Allen Theatre: Beatles Away With Words

 This was a great attraction, nine SROs in three days, crazy weekend. The full story here.

From Scene, August 24 - 30, 1972.

Allen Theatre: ZZ Top

 The passing of Frank Beard had me recalling their Allen Theatre appearances.

From Scene, December 5 - 11, 1974.

This was the show when a leg of the power feed into the building blew out during the sound check, forcing stagehands to do a bunch of workarounds, and the show went on.

From Scene, June 27 - July 4, 1974.

This show was the source of numerous Lovomotiv GT longplayers which were handed out prior to the show. 

RKO Theatres

 RKO ad from the Plain Dealer, July 10, 1936.

Playhouse Square

 Looking east on Euclid Avenue on Monday morning. Looks a lot different than it did in 1971. Many Thanks to Brian Adelson for the hospitality.

November 1971, Larry Nighswander photo. Didn't look much different four months later when I started work down there.

Dave Mason

 The recent passing of Dave Mason had me reminiscing about the first rock show I worked at the Allen. It was my second day there, Sunday, March 26, 1972. The audience of 2,860 all looked like the bad guys on Adam-12. When the house lights went out, the marihuana was lit, for a brief few seconds the auditorium would be illuminated by hundreds of matches and lighters. When I asked a policeman about this, I was told, "not a big deal kid." Quite a different message than school and telly. I had no idea what loud was until that night, the sound was quite deafening, making hard to communicate with co-workers.

From the Plain Dealer Action Tab, March 17, 1972.

Allen Theatre: Parliament-Funkadelic

 An Easter Sunday with P-Funk at the Allen.

From The Plain Dealer Action Tab, April 2, 1976.

Allen Theatre: Patti Smith

 A half century ago... Patti Smith, with Nils Lofgren and Les Dudek on a Sunday night.

 

From Scene, March 18 - 24, 1976. 

From Scene, April 15 - 21, 1976.

 

This was much better than the previous attraction, Patti would later appear at the Palace on June 23, 1979. 

Allen Theatre: Bruce Springsteen

 A half century ago, Bruce Springsteen played to back to back SROs at the Allen. This was the third, and thankfully last, time he appeared here. Unlike the review below, I thought this show was dreadful, The only reason I was there was because the girl I was dating at the time wanted to go, she really enjoyed it, however I found him to be insufferable. Like the review, we were at the April 7th show, I'm sure the following night was again filled with his worshiping fans.

From Scene, April 15-21, 1976.

Tris Speaker

 Tris Speaker and an Allen Theatre bally for "Where is My Wandering Boy?" From Exhibitor's Herald, May 20, 1922.

Playhouse Square

 Fifty four years ago.

From The Plain Dealer, March 17, 1972.

From The Plain Dealer, February 7, 1972.

Not sure what drove me to get involved with this, spirit of the times I guess, do something to help the community, and I did. Those places were cold, dirty, didn't pay much at all. Few thought the theatres were worth saving, most thought we were wasting out time. A handful of Clevelanders stepped up when no others did, Starting with Ray Shepardson and Ceil Hartman, Victor Villimas, Ralph Smith, Veralynne Bosco, Ken Plocica, Kevin McAndrew, Pete Weber, Chuck Fleming along with a few others. Other people got the glory later, but we were the people that actually did the work. 

Allen Theatre: Ted Nugent

 A half century ago, Blackfoot was the opener.

From Scene, February 12 - 18, 1976.

Allen Theatre: Uriah Heep

 

From, Scene, July 13 - 19, 1972.

Fifty three years ago tonight, Friday July 28, 1972, Uriah Heep hit the Allen stage. White Trash (the Apple Records group) were supposed to open, but didn't. For weeks ahead of time people were calling and asking, “is that Edgar Winter’s White Trash?”  “No, it’s not.” White Trash were in a barroom brawl in Chicago the previous weekend and drummer Bobby Ramirez was killed, so they were unable to appear. Damnation, the local group opened. For some reason the usual group we used as ushers were unavailable, so we scrounged up some people from everywhere, they were the worst, most of them quickly vanished into the crowd once the doors opened. At the end of the night only about 2-3 of the flashlights were returned. The Allen had no working air conditioning, and it was hotter than hell in there. It was also quite a rowdy night, one of the torchlights on the east mezzanine was smashed by some bozo. Smitty and I tackled some guy who was about to toss one of those big brass standee poles over the side of the mezzanine.  The show was briefly stopped when a bunch of people climbed into one of the false boxes on the house right side. One of the more amusing incidents was a group of people climbing a vertical ladder alongside the stage that led to the roof, when the top guy peeked over the top and saw a policeman there, he jumped down a rung causing a chain reaction, along with a few bruised fingers. This was also the first show in Cleveland to ban bottles and cans, something I seriously claim credit for. I had read a few weeks earlier in Variety where they implemented a no bottle policy at the Kansas City Midland and said we should do the same. It would solve a lot of problems, people throwing bottles, plus the cost of having them hauled away afterwards. 

Allen Theatre: Bee Gees

 A disastrous evening, Bee Gees played to about 4-500 people in a 2,800 seat theatre. Cleveland wasn't quite ready for Jive Talkin' as people stayed away in droves.

From the Plain Dealer, May 25, 1975.

Allen Theatre: Lou Reed

 A half century ago tonight, unlike the previous October, Lou was in peak form here.

From Scene, April 17-23, 1975.

Allen Theatre: Lily Tomlin

 The second half of a weekend I'll never forget, full story here.

I'll always remember putting those stickers on these flyers one day after school.

Allen Theatre: Genesis

 Hard to believe it was a half century ago, such halcyon years. Genesis did two SROs on successive nights, a couple months earlier they played to a half filled house, they were definitely on the upswing. The Hawkwind/Man concert a month earlier was great as well.

From the Plain Dealer, March 15, 1974.

Allen Theatre: Pink Floyd

 A wild night at the Allen, from the Plain Dealer, April 24, 1972.

Save The Allen Benefit

 The Save the Allen benefit was the work of Veralynne Bosco and Ralph "Smitty" Smith. Veralynne was friends with a number of people in the local rock scene and was able to recruit some of Cleveland's top bands. Damnation failed to appear, but their absence was hardly missed as they became the butt of that evenings jokes. This rather raucous affair lasted until well into the evening and was fairly well attended. This was supposed to be a big weekend for us, but the Peter Yarrow show on Friday was a flopo, and the Joe Tex show skedded for Saturday cancelled, so this was the highlight of the weekend.

Veralynne, along with "Poe" (pronounced Poe-ee) Ken Plocica, Kevin McAndrew, Pete Weber, and "Flemo" Chuck Fleming were some of Playhouse Square's earliest volunteers, all of whim Veralynne brought onboard, shameful they'll never get an acknowledgement from them.

Allen Theatre: Richard Harris

  Fifty three years ago tonight, Richard Harris appeared on the Allen Theatre stage.

From the Plain Dealer Action Tab, March 17, 1972.

Those are days I'll never forget, still have a few scars from there, still can't get the cold out of my bones. Always frigid in those places. Saving those buildings was the most thankless job I've ever had.

LaBelle

 Hard to believe this was fifty years ago, quite a night.

From Scene, February 6 - 12, 1975.