Starr Palace and the end of the line

In the final years of the State Theater’s existence as an active concert venue, there were quite a few attempts to continue to make it a place where people wanted to go. After the Agora shut its doors in 1982, the venue reverted back to the State Theater name only to trudge through the same pattern of uneven results as before. In 1984, the venue hosted rock concerts under the name Star Theatre, but ran out of steam sometime in late 1985/early ’86.

The State Theater’s final act was revealed on December 29, 1986, when a group of area businessmen under the name of Honorable Productions Inc. announced that the State Theater would begin hosting R&B, blues, hip-hop, jazz and gospel under the name Star Palace. The Star Palace (or Starr Palace as it was commonly spelled) opened on Dec. 31, 1986. Honorable Productions claimed it was putting $40,000 into renovation work at the time of the opening.

It’s difficult to gauge what acts took the stage there since management was uneven about advertising in The Vindicator during that time frame, but the booking tradition seemed to mirror that of those that went before it. I don’t have a specific date as to when the venue closed for good, but a member of Honorable Productions was busted in May of 1988 trying to sell 500 pounds of marijuana to undercover federal agents in Florida. That, and other issues, led to Youngstown city council requesting that the Starr Palace’s liquor license be revoked on August 30, 1988.

It’s really a shame that the venue didn’t hold on for a few more years because it likely would have been able to thrive during the alternative/grunge era of the early to mid ’90s.

FOOTNOTE: The Vindicator did a nice pictorial spread on the club on Dec. 30, 1986. Sadly there’s a good chance these were the last published photos of the venue in active use.

The Police work the Agora beat

Thanks in part to glorious exposure by MTV, The Police had no trouble playing whatever venue they wanted in the 1980s. The ’70s was a different matter altogether. Even though the band had reasonable success on the radio with the first two albums Outlandos d’Amour and Reggatta de Blanc, big gigs were still a ways off in the distance in the USA. When the band took the stage at the Youngstown Agora on November 11, 1979 they were in the midst of their second tour of the USA, supporting the Reggatta de Blanc album. Throughout 1979 and 1980 the band toured the world over several times with hardly any off time. That sort of grueling touring schedule would continue into the ’80s and lead to the band’s eventual breakup in the middle of the decade.

WHAT THE SHOW SOUNDED LIKE: There are any number of FM or soundboard recordings of shows during that tour.

Bob Dylan’s first time

It was revealed this week that Bob Dylan is coming to town for a show on August 28, 2012 at the Covelli Centre. This will not be his first go-around here though. On November 2, 1992, he played an acoustic show at Stambaugh Auditorium. Surprisingly it was a box office bomb as only 1,168 of 2,600 seats sold (I would hope Covelli’s management took that in mind when booking him at the arena). Dylan was supporting the Good as I Been to You album which was released a day after the performance in Youngstown. The 51-year-old played 18 songs in the two hour gig.

WHAT THE SHOW SOUNDED LIKE: A good sounding bootleg of the show was released in 1994 under the title Himself. Unfortunately recent copyright cyberlocker sweeps by the U.S. government have wiped out any places where the show can be downloaded.

 

Bon Jovi playing second fiddle to Donnie Iris

Our collective memories of Bon Jovi in the 1980s probably do not include visions of the band slumming it in the clubs, but that is exactly what the New Jersey rockers were doing when they showed up to support Donnie Iris on June 16, 1985 at the Star Theater (formerly the Agora/Tomorrow Club). At this point in their career, Bon Jovi had lukewarm results with the second album 7800° Fahrenheit and was in the midst of polishing the skills needed to launch into the Slippery When Wet era which would dominate MTV in 1986-87. This gig might have been the band’s first one back in the USA after coming off a massive European tour (it is not listed in any archives that I have seen online). They followed this up with a summer tour with Ratt.

Pittsburgh rocker Donnie Iris was slowly fading from his early 1980s chart successes at this point in his career. The 1985 album No Muss…No Fuss peaked at No. 115 on the charts. Record company difficulties led to seven years without a new album on the market. Gigs on the festival and fair circuits followed.

WHAT THE SHOW LOOKED LIKE: Here’s a link for some pictures from The Youngstown Agora Rocked on Facebook.

Mr. Excitement

Jackie Wilson was a giant in the R&B/soul game when he pulled into town for a show on May 7, 1960 at the Stambaugh Auditorium. An eventual Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Wilson was known for his dynamic stage show and did so with the nickname “Mr. Excitement”. Wilson had four top 10 pop hits in 1960 and was a performer that people like James Brown and Elvis Presley looked up to.

Later that year, Wilson was arrested during in a fan riot on July 17 in New Orleans. It was reported at the time that Wilson was ordered by cops not to mingle with the audience during a performance. When fans attempted to climb on stage, Wilson shoved a police officer who was trying to keep members of the audience off the stage. A violent reaction from those in attendance followed.

Metal Gods at the Agora

Judas Priest might have been a veteran band by the late ’70s, but they were also becoming a key component of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. The band spent basically all of 1979 touring the world over in support of the Hell Bent For Leather album. When Priest reached Youngstown for a gig on September 9, 1979 at the Agora, the band was in its third leg of an American tour that year. By this time, Rob Halford and company were playing some arena gigs opening for Dynasty-era Kiss.

The Youngstown show was a side gig on the arena section of the tour. It would take another year before Priest broke through on the album charts with British Steel. They would essentially be arena headliners for the next decade in the USA.

Included on the bill were area hard rock legends Poobah.

WHAT THE SHOW SOUNDED LIKE: Here’s a clip of “Take on the World” from a BBC broadcast during 1979.

Youngstown Agora: 12-31-78 to 7-23-82

After $200,000 in renovations, the Tomorrow Club-era gave way to the famed Agora brand on December 31, 1978 when Youngstown’s branch of the 13-club national concert venue chain opened at the State Theater site on Federal Plaza. The Tomorrow Club’s last official day was December 22, 1978. The transition took eight days.

The renovations included a new roof (I think this was probably the last time the venue had significant roof repair work done), facade restoration, new signage and interior repair including a bar on the mezzanine level. The club also positioned itself to record shows like the famous Cleveland Agora although I’m not sure how many actually were put down to tape or broadcast. An article in The Jambar from 1979 indicates that the Youngstown Agora had the largest capacity of any venue in the chain at the time at 2,142.

The end of the Youngstown Agora came suddenly on July 23, 1982 when an ad in the Vindicator signaled that the club was closed until further notice. There had been attendance issues and battles with city officials over concert-goer-related vandalism in the area in the last months of the Agora’s existence. The marquee read “Closed for the Summer” during the week the doors were shut illustrating faint optimism by club management that economic conditions would improve and allow the Agora to rise again. It did not (all but the one in Cleveland did not survive the 1980s).

BRQ Inc., headed by Jack Gerchock, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy later in the year. The company listed assets of $10,000 and liabilities of $277,152. The venue began hosting concerts again in May of 1983 under the original State Theater name. That only lasted a few months, however.

Huey Lewis working the clubs

Huey Lewis and the News already had two top 10 hits to their name when they played a sold out show on November 12, 1983 at The Arcade (a club across the street from Stambaugh Stadium where McDonald’s sits now). The band was out on its “Workin’ For a Livin'” tour in support of the Sports album. Strangely only a little more than a year before, the band played a gig at the larger Youngstown Agora on May 2, 1982. By late 1983, the Agora was closed however.

“Do You Believe In Love” went to No. 7 in 1982, while the first single off Sports “Heart and Soul” was on its way to No. 8 by the time the band showed up for the 1983 Arcade gig. The album, which didn’t really get traction until 1984, produced three more top 10 singles and sold 7 million copies. It was reported in the The Jambar that around 600 tickets were sold for the gig.

A slice of Meat Loaf with a side of Tom Petty

If you want to talk about getting a lot of rock for your dollar, the Meat Loaf and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers show on November 13, 1977 at the Tomorrow Club was one of those deals of a lifetime. For the price of $3 in advance and $4 at the door, your ticket granted you access to two multi-platinum artists (maybe not yet, but they would be).

Meat Loaf was just starting a tour to support Bat Out Of Hell released in October of 1977. It would take a while to garner momentum, but it went on to sell 14 million albums in the United States and millions more worldwide before it was all said and done.

Tom Petty and his band were still supporting their first album released a year earlier. Even at this young stage in their careers, though, the Heartbreakers had the hits “American Girl” and “Breakdown” in their repertoire.

Just a reminder…

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