Quote:
Originally Posted by JollyElm
That's really bizarre. I was just looking up the Agora Ballroom, because I have mp3s of "Boston Live At Agora Ballroom 1976" and wanted to see what the place is/was. Never heard of it before, and BOOM!!! the moment I look it up, there's a reference to it in a thread. Strange days, indeed.
Oh, has anyone 'nominated' Tom Scholz yet? He unquestionably deserves to be included here. It's nearly impossoble to listen to a Boston tune and NOT go into air guitar mode.
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Hey Darren,
What is the old saying, "Truth is stranger than fiction!", right?
You can't make up stuff like this. Will always have the memories of the old Agora. It was open seven days a week. The concerts were just on Monday nights. The rest of the week it was just your local bar with live local bands playing. (With the exception of the Wednesday morning "Coffee Break" concerts they also held there at times, emceed by the WMMS deejay Matt the Cat, and broadcast live on local FM rock station WMMS.)
There was actually a second, separate bar in the basement of the Agora building also, somewhat appropriately called the "Mistake". Much smaller and more intimate than the upstairs Agora, and open mostly on the weekend nights. But still featured live local bands. Can still remember the night the Hell's Angels showed up in the Mistake, and I witnessed a couple of them beat and kick the $hit out of some guy who just accidently bumped into the one Angel standing at the bar. My college buddy's older brother was actually working behind the bar in the Mistake that night, and I remember looking over and seeing him standing back away from the bar with the baseball bat they kept behind it in his hands, with this absolutely shocked and stunned look on his face. The beat-down was over so fast, if you blinked twice, you'd miss it. Nobody could do anything because it had happened so quick The two Angels who did it turned right back around and started drinking and talking to themselves as if nothing had happened, totally ignoring the poor guy who lay on the floor all battered and bloody. A couple of his friends gathered him up and got him out of there pronto. The rest of the Angels gang in the bar, maybe a dozen or so, never moved or did anything, and went right back to talking and drinking themselves as if nothing had happened either. It wasn't more than five minutes or so later that I saw more Cleveland police officers than I had ever seen all in one place in my life. There were many in riot gear and with shields and shotguns. My friend and I snuck outside to watch as the cops formed two lines and "escorted" the entire gang of Hells Angels outside through the corridor of cops they had formed, and had them get onto their bikes. They left, and immediately afterwards so did all the cops, without apparently arresting anybody. It was after that that I developed a new understanding and appreciation for the biker movies put out back then. Was definitely not your typical Saturday night in Cleveland, Ohio back in the 70s. LOL Just another chapter in the Agora legend.