Tower Theatre

thethrills on December 27, 2009 at 7:51 pm

I would love to photgraph the Tower Theater as I am a photographer and I love the Tower! I would love a tour! Any suggestions on how to get permission to do these things?

thethrills on December 27, 2009 at 7:44 pm

I grew up in Upper Darby, PA where the Tower Theater is located. I’ve seen many great concerts there. It’s a great venue. The acoustics are fanominal. It was restored in 2002 just before I saw the Rolling Stones there. The seats are comfortable and soft. There isn’t a bad seat in the house (except some cramped leg roon in a few upper Balcony seats. No matter where you sit (or paas out) the sound is great. This place was designed for sound. The Stadiums and hockey arenas are not designed for sound. By now you'think these egg heads who design these venues take concerts/sound in to consideration.

As far as safety goes, there’s homeless in the area but there’s plenty of police around the facility during concerts. There’s a lot of concert goers there too. I think it is perfectly safe at concert time.

There are no hotles in the 69th Street area where the Tower is located. Center City Philadelphia is a SEPTA El ride (elevated train) to the end of the line to 69th Street. The Tower Theater is one block for the 69th Street Terminal.

Concerts end fairly early at the Tower as a way to apease the neighbors after many late concerts (There use to be two concerts a night – an early show and a late show)with noise late at hight, the Township passed an ordinance about whe concerts have to end. You are always finished by 11 PM.

A great Itialian resturant about ¾ of a mile from the Tower is Fank Pica’s on West Chester Pike (Market Street turns in to West Chester Pike). It’s an easy drive or bus ride to the resturant. There’s fast food places up the hill (69th Street) from the Tower. There a Super Market and Wawa convience store about a ½ mile up 69th Street. All of these places are easy to find. The Tower is the best place to see and hear a concert!

mrmojo on April 30, 2009 at 7:05 pm

I have tickets for the upcoming eddie vedder concert in tower theater. They are located in the Loge, row LL. I have no idea where row LL is located. I have not seen it on any map or seating chart on the net. Can someone clear this up for me?

stephymays3 on December 11, 2007 at 2:05 pm

Neil Young sounded fabulous at the Tower last night and the night before. He says he’ll be back. I can’t wait. It’s a great venue…not too big.

TheaterBuff1 on September 26, 2007 at 8:40 am

Has anybody ever pinpointed why the Tower has the most fantastic acoustics in the world? Or is this just one of those freak and seemingly coincidental phenomenons that no one as of yet has ever been able to fully explain? I remember how Bowie, and also Springsteen, absolutely idolized that theater for that very reason. And here it is into the 21st century, and it still has it!

infotaupe on September 25, 2007 at 3:00 am

Hi, you can find a more detailed seating chart in my blog: http://infotaupe.blogspot.com Hope that helps!

HowardBHaas on September 20, 2007 at 12:36 am

Excellent article! That link will break. Here-

A Tower of music and memoriesBy JONATHAN TAKIFF
215-854-5960

The Tower Theater today (left) is a prime venue for rock concerts – a completely different
The Tower Theater today (left) is a prime venue for rock concerts – a completely different vibe from 1971 (above), when it was a movie house showing “Klute” and “Summer of ‘42.”
» More images A high, steel tower has loomed above the landscape at 69th and Ludlow streets since 1927. Evocative of the old RKO Pictures logo, the structure initially was topped off with a swirling, illuminated ball that could be seen for miles, and gave the Upper Darby showplace beneath it, the Tower Theater, its name.
Today, virtually all the other ornate “photoplay” (movie) and stage-show palaces of the Tower’s size (originally 2,616 seats, now 3,119) and elegance are gone. And, sadly, that attention-grabbing light fixture no longer functions.

But thanks to the power of rock ‘n’ roll – with a little pop, comedy and R&B thrown in on the side – the Tower remains a beacon of light, luring concertgoers from far and wide to commune with their favorite entertainers.

What a history this place has wrought!

Stadium and arena superstar Bruce Springsteen once vowed he would never play any place larger than the Tower with his rock-‘em-sock-'em E-Street Band. (In 1974 at the Tower, the band earned its then-biggest paycheck – $5,000.)

The British progressive-rock band Genesis – this week playing three big shows at the Wachovia Center (with tickets priced from $77 to $227) – made its Philadelphia-area debut at the Tower on Nov. 16, 1973. It was a midnight show, for which spectators paid all of $4. The band got $750.

The Tower was the area concert hall where Stevie Wonder made his landmark transition to adult-oriented, progressive soul music, introducing material from the incredible “Talking Book” disc. Legend has it that Georgie Woods, who’d promoted Wonder’s prior shows at the Uptown Theater, didn’t think his new music was any good, and so passed on doing the show at the North Broad Street hall!

Some notable live albums, a huge number of radio broadcasts and a sprinkling of videos have been made at the Upper Darby showcase – including David Bowie’s “David Live,” Hall & Oates' “Live at the Tower Theater,” Average White Band’s “Person to Person,” Paul Simon’s “Live at the Tower Theater” and parts of Steve Miller’s huge hit “The Joker.”

Also passing through its stage doors have been: Bob Marley & the Wailers, the Rolling Stones, Smokey Robinson, Al Green, Morrissey, Radiohead, a riot-inspiring Jane’s Addiction, James

Taylor, Sheryl Crow, the Black

Crowes; and comedians George Carlin, Jon Stewart and Lewis Black.

This fall, the venue will play host to: Kings of Leon (9/21), Ben Harper (9/22), Regina Spektor (9/27), funnyman Jim Gaffigan (9/29), Gov’t Mule (10/6), Tori Amos (10/15), American Idol Kelly Clarkson (10/18), Smashing Pumpkins (10/21-22), John Fogerty (11/3) and Neil Young (12/9.)

The Tower Theater was built at a cost of $1.25 million just two years before the Great Depression slowed (and then, after 1932, ended) Philadelphia’s movie-palace boom. While not quite as fancy as contemporaries like the Mastbaum, the Earle and the Uptown, the Tower had its charms – decorated with lavish marble staircases, oriental rugs, handsome lobby furniture and glamorous art deco by Erte. A tuxedo-clad pianist tinkled a grand piano’s keys in the foyer.

And the theater’s interior oozed with movie-set atmosphere.

The walls were decorated in a trellised, English garden motif, while the ceiling twinkled with 150 stars.

Typical of the times, the theater had a house orchestra, plus a huge Wurlitzer organ that magically rose into view on a motorized lift to accompany the silent films still dominating the movie industry when the theater opened.

The biggest of three theaters in Upper Darby (the others were the 69th Street and the Terminal), the Tower offered vaudeville and burlesque stars on stage, plus the latest cinema features on screen. As vaudeville waned, movies became the staple. In the late 1950s and early ‘60s some multi-act, rock and soul music revues occasionally took over the stage.

By the early 1970s, the Tower had fallen on hard times. The theater was reduced to showing second- and third-run movies at a bargain $1 admission price. “The place was a mess. There were leaks in the ceiling, the paint was peeling, the carpeting was pretty bad,” recalls Rick Green, who toured the place then with his older brother Stu. But as fans of the Fillmore East in New York – which wasn’t such great shakes either, in the decor department – the 20-something Green brothers saw similar potential at the Tower. They made a deal with the owners – the A.M. Ellis Theater Co. – to turn the Tower into Philly’s hottest rock-concert hall.

With the bucks the Greens were paying in rent – initially $800 per show night – Ellis started reinvesting in the theater, including more and nicer seats. And the Green brothers' Midnight Sun Concerts started bringing in progressive-rock acts with appeal to the coming-of-age boomer crowd (Dave Mason was their opener on June 14, 1972). They brought in: Springsteen, Electric Light Orchestra, the Bee Gees, Fleetwood Mac, Kiss, Renaissance, Jackson Browne, Procol Harum, Quincy Jones and Mr. Bowie – whose theatrically charged and amazingly rocking Fall of ‘72 “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” show shook up this kid but good.

Stu Green now allows that “R&B (rhythm and blues) music was really my thing.” But the brothers (originally from North Jersey) discovered that “rock and especially anything British, did really well in this town.”

They relied in part on guidance from DJs at then free-form WMMR, and also on “a 12-year-old kid who lived in an apartment adjoining the theater, Mike Hoffman,” recalls Rick Green. “He was a diehard Anglophile with a British pen pal who would send over all the hot new releases, and Mike would clue us to them.” (Hoffman is still turning people on to the good stuff, as proprietor of A.K.A. Music, 27 N. 2nd St.)

The Greens put on “about 100 shows a year – often two a night,” notes Stu – until the rug was abruptly pulled out from under them in 1975. A member of the Ellis clan bargained away the Tower for $350,000 to Midnight Sun’s larger competitor, Electric Factory Concerts. Midnight Sun still exists – as a Delaware County-based management and booking agency for bar bands.

As an element now of the Live Nation megaconcert operation, Electric Factory has kept the rock-hall vibe intact at the Tower, while gradually bringing the property back to respectability. The basement men’s room no longer floods regularly. Seats, curtains and walls have been freshened up, the dropped ceiling in the lobby was removed to reveal the original fancy plaster work hiding beneath. The air conditioning works better, and if it gets too hot, you can now cool off with a beer from the lobby bar.

Midsize halls are gaining favor with touring acts like Clarkson – who originally had planned to perform this year in one of our nicer, 20,000-seat hockey rinks. So the Tower’s future seems secure.

EFC chief Larry Magid even fought off the idea of his corporate parent to change the name of the theater to the Fillmore Philadelphia as part of a national branding stategy. (TLA took the hit instead.) Magid told a reporter in April that the Tower’s legend loomed too large, even before he got involved in the operation:

“I saw rock ‘n’ roll shows there when I was a kid.”

edm34 on September 12, 2007 at 5:28 am

hey i was just wondering what the neighborhood is like around the theater. i was planning on going to see kings of leon in a few weeks, and since im going to be going to school in university city i was just curious what the neighborhood is like in west philly at night.

thanks!

HowardBHaas on September 1, 2007 at 8:01 pm

These exterior photos are from The Exhibitor magazine:
1930
View link

1935
View link

my 2007 photo:
View link

Howard

JessieR613 on August 2, 2007 at 8:14 pm

HELP!!!! anyone who can help with all of this, please write back……

Hey i am looking for help with the seating in the Tower Theatre for an upcoming concert in September. It is for Kings of Leon, and they are incredible live, so i want to make sure i can see them very well, and that they can see me also! I have been going to their shows for 2 years now, and this will be the first show to kick off 5 more that i will be attending..

I have already purchased tickets and got R/C OR, row CC, seat 109. My second seat was all the way in RGT OR row D seat 25. (which isnt very good right?) I wouldve loved to have gotten pit tickets, but they were not offered i do not think during the pre-sale, because it only gave you the option of ‘Best Available’.

I was wondering since i am going with my friend, that she can just sit on my lap or something like that before the concert starts (we are very small)… because we like to dance, so its not like we will be sitting down.
1. Would that be practical?
2. Is my one seat very close (row CC) to the stage? Or does the pit take up a lot of room?
3. Are the aisles big?.. and do they take up a lot of room?
4. Would it make sense to try and get one pit ticket, and still have my friend sit on my lap until the concert starts?
5. If not, would it be possible to sneek our way into the pit area after the concert starts?… I highly doubt anyone would be sitting.
6. Has anyone ever seen a concert there where people like to get as close as they can? Because the Kings concerts are like that, so would it be allowd to push your way out of the seat area close to the pit?

I just dont want to try and find pit tickets if i have a good seat (someone tell me if i do, because ive never been here), and can pull off a little stunt (i am very good with those things, very determined to see the boys very close, and very sneeky.. so i usually can work my magic) But if this theatre is not like that, someone please tell me.

PLEASE someone let me know all of these things, if you have ever been to the Tower, or you work there. I would really appreciate everyones help they give me. And by the looks of it, this website is very good for advice. This concert is very important to me.. Thanks so much!!

gothamfoodie on July 27, 2007 at 6:23 pm

Thanks to little Niagara and infotaupe for the information on the PIT seats at the TOWER!! I have been unable to get any information at all and we have CCC pit seats for Interpol and I was getting nervous that they were going to be folding chairs set lower in the theatre (an old orchestra pit or something). so now I can just look forward to the show. Thanks!

smashp on July 17, 2007 at 4:55 pm

Does anyone know if they take out the PIT seats AAA or BBB and make pit CCC front row from the stage?? This is for the Smashing Pumpkins show

allenla98 on May 25, 2007 at 3:36 pm

Infotaupe – I wish I had found your site before I went to the Tower recently, we ate crap food in the “food court” of the United Artists. It was only after the show when we were leaving that we saw the Waterford which is exactly what we were looking for. Bummer. Nice website you have.