Not to be a downer, but there were several factors that led to the demise of Nashville’s Tennessee Theater as a live performance venue. The loading dock was a joke. The power grid was seriously taxed by the demands of touring sound and lighting co.’s, and when those lights went on, the place turned into an oven. Also the acoustics, especially the low end, were not good, probably because the room was so narrow and long. I played a gig there in 1980 and attended several other concerts.
By the mid-80s downtown Nashville was a ghost town after dark. I imagine it was extremely difficult to book any nationally known acts in there and harder still to sell tickets. Even if you could have backed a Brinks truck up to the place and gutted it, you would still have had a 50’s-era Art Deco (not America’s finest moment in architecture) narrow box in a bad location for the next 10 years.
I, too, was sad to see it demolished, but I also knew what it was up against. As a child growing up in Knoxville in the 60’s, my weekends were spent at the Tennessee and Riviera on Gay St. Nashville’s Tennessee was unfortunately nothing like Knoxville’s. Add to that the urban decay of the surrounding area, and you start to see why there was not a big preservation/restoration movement.
Not to be a downer, but there were several factors that led to the demise of Nashville’s Tennessee Theater as a live performance venue. The loading dock was a joke. The power grid was seriously taxed by the demands of touring sound and lighting co.’s, and when those lights went on, the place turned into an oven. Also the acoustics, especially the low end, were not good, probably because the room was so narrow and long. I played a gig there in 1980 and attended several other concerts.
By the mid-80s downtown Nashville was a ghost town after dark. I imagine it was extremely difficult to book any nationally known acts in there and harder still to sell tickets. Even if you could have backed a Brinks truck up to the place and gutted it, you would still have had a 50’s-era Art Deco (not America’s finest moment in architecture) narrow box in a bad location for the next 10 years.
I, too, was sad to see it demolished, but I also knew what it was up against. As a child growing up in Knoxville in the 60’s, my weekends were spent at the Tennessee and Riviera on Gay St. Nashville’s Tennessee was unfortunately nothing like Knoxville’s. Add to that the urban decay of the surrounding area, and you start to see why there was not a big preservation/restoration movement.