1981 November

1981 November Performances

• November 18  the Metro - Boston
  
• November 21  Irvine Auditorium - Philadelphia PA
  
• November 25  Passaic, NJ
  
• November 28  The Palladium Theater - NYC NY
  
• November 27-29 1981 International Amphitheater - Chicago Ill
  

Write-ups, reviews and mentions

• November 14, 1981 - The Boston Globe
  
• November 18, 1981 - The Boston Globe
  

TV Appearances

• November 14, 1981 - Saturday Night Live
  

November 14, 1981 

Saturday Night Live

NBC

The host for this episode of Saturday Night Live is Bernadette Peters. Musical guest are the Go-Go's  and Billy Joel.

 More show info from IMDb

November 14, 1981
Boston Globe Boston - MA
by Steve Morse Globe Staff
pg. 1

Film Review of URGH! A MUSIC WAR

CRASH COURSE IN NEW ROCK; URGH! A MUSIC WAR - PRODUCED BY MICHAEL WHITE, DIRECTED BY DEREK BURBIDGE,; FEATURING CONCERT FOOTAGE OF 28 NEW ROCK BANDS, AT THE CHERI, RATED; R.

Excerpt from the Boston Globe review: 

This overly ambitious film attempts to boil down an entire rock 'n' roll revolution into chewable one-song portions from 28 bands. It is an unprecedented approach to a concert film, and is sure to incite controversy.

The chief issue is why 28 new bands - espousing vastly different styles even though sharing an anti-mainstream bias - were thrown together in such a hodge-podge, bulletin board setting. Although separate concerts took place in Los Angeles, New York, London and France, the footage was pasted together as though from the same event. One song follows another in feverish fashion, with no attempt at synthesis or purpose. It's just 1-2-3-4, here we go, and if you don't like one group, up pops another like a jack in the box.............

..........The curious effect of "Urgh!" is that one song from some bands just barely whets the appetite (in the cases of Toyah Wilcox, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and the Go Go's), while one song from others is more than enough (the Fleshtones, 999 and Chelsea). 

             Track listing

• Opening credits
  
• The Police – "Driven to Tears"
  
• Wall of Voodoo – "Back in Flesh"
  
• Toyah Willcox – "Dance"
  
• John Cooper Clarke – "Health Fanatic"
  
• Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – "Enola Gay"
  
• Chelsea – "I’m on Fire"
  
• Oingo Boingo – "Ain’t This the Life"
  
• Echo & the Bunnymen – "The Puppet"
  
• Jools Holland – "Foolish I Know"
  
• XTC – "Respectable Street"
  
• Klaus Nomi – "Total Eclipse"
  
• Athletico Spizz 80 – "Where’s Captain Kirk?"
  
• The Go-Go's – "We Got the Beat"
  
• Dead Kennedys – "Bleed for Me"
  
• Steel Pulse – "Ku Klux Klan"
  
• Gary Numan – "Down in the Park"
  
• Joan Jett and the Blackhearts – "Bad Reputation"
  
• Magazine – "Model Worker"
  
• Surf Punks – "My Beach"
  
• The Members – "Offshore Banking Business"
  
• Au Pairs – "Come Again"
  
• The Cramps – "Tear It Up"
  
• Invisible Sex – "Valium"
  
• Pere Ubu – "Birdies"
  
• Devo – "Uncontrollable Urge"
  
• The Alley Cats – "Nothing Means Nothing Anymore"
  
• John Otway – "Cheryl’s Going Home"
  
• Gang of Four – "He’d Send in the Army"
  
• 999 – "Homicide"
  
• The Fleshtones – "Shadowline"
  
• X – "Beyond and Back"
  
• Skafish – "Sign of the Cross"
  
• Splodgenessabounds – "Two Little Boys"
  
• UB40 – "Madame Medusa"
  
• The Police – "Roxanne"
  
• The Police – "So Lonely"

November 18, 1981 

The Metro

15 Lansdowne Street 

Boston

The Metro club site previously housed the ultra cool  Boston Tea Party.   The Metro then morphed into  the high tech disco joint called the Avalon. All the cool bands would play at the Boston Tea Club such as, the Velvet Underground, the Who, Led Zeppelin, BB King. In 1967 the Tea Party  originally was located at 53 Berkeley ( at the corner of Appleton Street). Then, in 1969, it moved to 15 Lansdowne Street and took over a space previously occupied by a short lived rock club called the Ark.  The Tea Party only lasted here about a year before it closed for good in 1970.  Then the site turned into the Metro club and later the Avalon disco. 

--- more info from Boston.com

Ulta Cool

wolfgangs' vault

15 Lansdowne Street

   Photo: www.planet99.com

Ultra Disco

Final days of 15 Lansdowne St.

Media Credit: Ryan Littman-Quinn

November 18, 1981

Boston Globe Write-Up

The Go-Go's Are Setting a Fast Pace 

by Jim Sullivan Globe Correspondent

Excerpt from Boston Globe write-up

The Go-Go's - five girls from Los Angeles who have their debut album at No. 20 on Billboard's charts - made a point of covering themselves with lipstick and powder on the cover of "Beauty and the Beat." Lounging about in beautifying masques and bright red lipstick, the girls appear not to have a care in the world. It's vanity personified and magnified.
That, says singer Belinda Carlisle on the phone from New York, is a wry poke at the standard image of rock 'n' roll women, who invariably seem to be cast as sex symbols. The Go-Go's, who return to the Metro for shows this afternoon and tonight, present themselves as people first - "odd shapes and sizes" as guitarist Charlotte Caffey has said - and their hard-driving pop bristles with uncalculated exuberance.
This is more apparent live than on record. Though the songs are solid, "Beauty and the Beat" suffers from studio sterility and caution. In concert, the Go-Go's let it rip - the witty, earnest hard pop is driven by strong, tight rhythms from drummer Gina Shock and bassist Kathy Valentine and topped with aggressive guitar chording from Caffey and Jane Wiedlin.
Incidentally, in these times of perilous terminology, the Go- Go's, all in their 20s, tend to describe themselves as "girls," not "women." "Girls, women," says Caffey, offering the verbal equivalent of a shrug. "It's us.".....

......Any female rock 'n' roll idols?
"Can you think of any?" asks Caffey. "I can't. There weren't any. I saw the Beatles when I was 11 years old and they were the ones that influenced me the most. That and '60s radio."
Carlisle goes back to jazz and country. "Billie Holiday and Patsy Cline."
From out of left field, the Go-Go's have become popular girls. They began to build a following last year with the anthem-like "We Got the Beat," a song Caffey wrote in five minutes while watching "The Twilight Zone" and listening to Smokey Robinson on the radio. 

"It's outrageous, I know," Caffey says, her tone bordering between apologetic and proud. "It's unreal."
"I always knew we'd be successful," adds Carlisle, "but I never dreamed it would go into the Top 20. I haven't changed the past three years, but I'm afraid of (others') perspectives of me changing. I can't exactly go out of my head and go dance and have a great time because I'm constantly being judged. It's one of the prices you have to pay. It's sort of weird - but I like it though.

November 21, 1981

University of Pennsylvania

Irvine Auditorium

3401 Spruce Street

Philadelphia, PA

Irvine Auditorium (U of P campus)

photo: wiki page

Irvine auditorium main hall

photo from Destination Penn.com web site

Irvine Auditorium is the location for many University of Pennsylvania ceremonies, speaking engagements, movies, and concerts. At full capacity (including balcony)  it seats 1,260 people. The balcony houses the eleventh-largest pipe organ in the world, the Curtis Organ, which was built for the Sesquicentennial Exhibition in 1926, and donated to the University in 1928.

November 25, 1981

Capitol Theater (aka John Scher's Capitol Theater)

326 Monroe Street

Monroe Street and Central Ave

Passaic, NJ

The Capitol Theater was built in 1918 as a vaudeville theater. 

Throughout the 1970s and into the mid 1980s the 3,200 seat theatre was a popular stop on nearly every major rock artist's tour. The venue was known for its in house video system which resulted in a number of good quality, black and white video bootlegs. After it closed, the building fell into disrepair and it was demolished in April 1991.    source: wiki/capitoltheater info

The Capitol Theatre, according to Billboard Magazine in 1980, was “the No.1 concert hall in the nation under 6,000 seats.” The Capitol had the best acoustical environment (2-inch thick acoustical padding on the interior walls), an unobstructed view of the stage from every seat and the best bands in the world, including The Grateful Dead, The Who, Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones—and just about everyone else who toured in the 70s and 80s. The Capitol Theatre was also the longest running concert hall in rock'n'roll history. (Moyssi.com)

 moyssi.com 

Photo by Kevin R. Papa

March 30, 1980

moyssi.com

Date: Novenber 25, 1981

Bands: Go-Gos; Joe ‘King’ Carasco and the Crowns; SVT
Venue: Capitol Theatre, Passaic NJ
Quality: Uncirculated program; Cover art.
Comments: “Beauty and The Beat”

art source: moyssi.com

Joe King Carasco and the Crowns/SVT

November 28, 2008

Palladium Theater 

126 E. 14th Street

East Village, NYC

Palladium Theater

The Palladium was aconcert hall and later a nightclub in New York City. It was located on the south side of East 14th Street, between Irving Place and 3rd Avenue. 

The Palladium Theater was built in 1927 by movie mogul William Fox. It was originally intended to be the 2nd home to The Academy of Music. (The original Academy of Music stood across the street on the NE corner of 14th and Irving). 

 The Academy started to present  rock n roll show was in 1955. 

The Rolling Stones played at the Academy in 1964

streetsyoucrossedblogspot

And again in 1965

streetsyoucrossedblogspot

Starting in 1971 the Academy of Music  was utilized primarily as a rock concert venue to fill a gap left by the closure of the Fillmore East.

 In 1976 is was rechristened the Palladium. It continued as a live concert hall into the following decade. Hundred of bands played the Palladium whose audience was too large for clubs but not big enough for arenas like Madison Square Garden.

Several live albums were recorded at the Palladium. 

Then...sometime in 1983 -84, the Palladium stopped presenting live rock concerts and in May 1985 it became a huge high tech disco auditorium. 

Final days of the Palladium

The Palladium closed in 1996, sold to NYU and subsequently demolished in 1998.

The site now houses a NYU dorm. 

November 27-29, 1981

International Amphitheater

Halsted Street and 43rd Street

Chicago, Illinois

International Amphitheater

Chicago Stock Yard

photo from the Chicago Daily News

Located next to the Union Stock Yards, this indoor area held 9,000 people. It was originally built to hold live stock exhibitions. In 1971 it started to hold rock concerts and sporting events. It was the original home of the Chicago Bulls. The Amphitheater also hosted several national conventions in the '50's and '60's - including the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention. 

The Beatles  played here in September 5, 1964 and again August 12, 1966.

Beatle's Concert Ticket

The Beatles at the International Amphitheater

photo: Chicago Tribune

The International Amphitheater in Chicago was demolished in 1999.  

Today the site is an  Aramark

uniform services plant

Rezoom Chicago

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