This one was a total disaster, a lot of hand wringing afterwards, but the fact was Brownsville Station wasn't popular enough in 1972 to fill a 2,800-seat hall, especially on a Monday night. The less said the better of Detroit with Mitch Ryder, the days of Jenny Take a Ride were long gone, replaced with pointless covers of Lou Reed songs. Biggie Rat was from the Youngstown-Warren area, I think some of the members were later in Left End. I don't think Ron Sweed-The Ghoul actually appeared; they probably couldn't pay him. Brownsville would make another appearance at the Allen on July 12, 1974, where they were famously blown off the stage by a band from Den Haag, Golden Earring. As for Music Hall Productions, I think this was their last production, not sure if there were any others prior to this fiasco. Meanwhile at the Allen, another big weekend was coming up fast.
By this time, I was often selling tix in the BO, after school and on the weekends, or I was running errands. At some point in the previous week, I was in the Palace for the first time (since 1963), while it was still occupied by International Trade & Fair. I'd already been to Loew's Ohio and State, which were both in sorry shape, and would often pop over to explore when we had the keys.
On one such weekday afternoon a few of the Next Generation kids were there and we went over to Loew's State, I think there were four of us with two flashlights. Going into either of the Loew houses at this time was something of a surreal experience. Entering through the front door off busy Euclid Avenue, you stepped into an empty dusty, musty, cavern where your every step echoed throughout. What lights there were could be flipped on from a switch panel in a room that had also once served as an auxiliary BO in the lobby. The four of us go through the grand lobby and head off to the area where Kennedy's is now. We go through the doorway under the west grand stairs and descend the few steps down into the hallway that was once there. Off to the left there's a room, which was once an usherette's dressing room, not much to see here. Back in the hallway, we go to the end, and turn left, suddenly a scream, followed by "THERE'S A BODY!" And a terrified kid turns and runs, knocking the rest of us down, along with the remaining flashlight as we're now plunged into darkness. The three of us, now totally freaked out, somehow made our way the short distance back to the lobby, where we then heard a vivid description of a body propped up in the room below. Regaining our senses, the three of us, who hadn't seen the body, cautiously went back to the area, leaving the freaked-out guy behind in the lobby. After pausing to put the other flashlight back together in the hall, we approached the room with great trepidation. What we saw was a cardboard cut-out of a cheerleader with a megaphone promoting some long-forgotten motion picture. There was no body, just some kid from Garfield Heights High with a vivid imagination.
The room had once been Cecil Ryder's workshop, he was in charge of all the Loew Theatre buildings in the Cleveland area for a number of decades. There were all sorts of interesting things in there, I still have a Loew's Stillman Upper Mezzanine sign from 1916. Essentially this room had all sorts of spare parts for the building. We often would look for hardware we needed in there first, finding it more often than not.
Wish I could remember the names of the Next Generation kids, they were all seniors at Garfield Heights High School at the time, they worked as ushers, or at the concession stands for shows through Lily Tomlin on May 7.
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