The week after its final show, one fan remembers his favorite memories of the fabled NYC ballroom

It was twenty years ago this year that I went to my first Roseland show.

It was the first concert I had ever seen in New York City. As a kid who grew up in Ulster County, the only events I had been to were at either the area arenas, the Orange County Speedway, the Mid-Hudson Civic Center and The Chance in Poughkeepsie, the Bardovan, SPAC in Saratoga Springs, the New Paltz bar scene and, of course the variety of public parks, backyards, basements and living rooms my friends and their bands would play. Looking back, it was very cool to have been able to have grown up witnessing live music in such a wide spectrum of venues. But getting on the Grand Central-bound train from the Beacon platform with my boy Mike Cunningham to go see Biohazard and House of Pain at the Roseland was quite unlike anything I had ever experienced. The show, in and of itself, wasn’t the most memorable one, save for the fact that I could say I have been to KoRn’s first New York City performance as the opening act. At first I was skeptical of them based on the obnoxious amount of street team promotion Epic had going on them throughout the night but by the end of their short, dark and intense set I was sold. I didn’t go in the mosh pit, but a random girl started grinding up against me during Biohazard’s set, although she looked a lot better when the ballroom was dark.

I’ve seen countless concerts at the Roseland during my years in college, then as part of the editorial staff at CMJ on through to my modern digs as a hustling freelance writer. And the fact that I’m writing this on the last night of its near-century-old existence, enduring two World Wars, the Great Depression, New York City at its worst and the Disneyfication of Midtown not only makes me reflective and sad the mourn the loss of my very first NYC rock club experience. It more so makes me angry. The Roseland Ballroom, which has existed in Manhattan since opening its doors on New Years Eve in 1919, should have been landmarked. They are not saying exactly why the venue has been shuttered, but anyone who has been cognizant of the systematic de-culturization of the city in the days after 9/11 can only look upward from the Roseland’s rooftop and recognize that no amount of historical significance can compensate for a deregulated free marketplace and the greed of a developer who sees a giant beanstalk of profits by erecting a skyscraper where the charming low-level building stands today.

The last time I was at the Roseland for a show was on September 30, 2011 when some of my best buds and I caught Primus there literally days after they released their comeback classic Green Naugahyde. I’ve been doing to see Primus since they opened for Anthrax and Public Enemy back in the fall of 1991 and nothing beats the set they dropped at Roseland, busting out gems like “Groundhog Day”, “Mr. Know-It-All” and “Southbound Pachyderm” with an energy and freshness that made them sound new to me all over again. I’m honored to consider it my own personal swan song as a longtime patron of the room.

However, writing this tonight knowing that this beloved establishment is being closed out in such a bullshit fashion as Lady Gaga ends her weeklong residency, strangely empowers me to need to speak up and remember the Roseland Ballroom for the eye-opening institution of American culture from its origins as a Yuengling Beer-backed prospect from Philadelphia back in 1917.

And out of all of the great shows I’ve seen there, here are the five that will forever hold a special place in my long term memory bank. I am certainly going to miss navigating the rose-printed carpeting and faded ballroom floor to find my ideal spot near the one pole center stage left. I’m gonna miss checking out the pin table on my way to the bathroom downstairs. I’m going to miss the treat of landing tickets that gave me access to the balcony area, where I once sat near Anthony Keidis and met Busta Rhymes. I’m definitely not going to miss the obnoxious bouncers nor the Job-testing wait on that line which wrapped around the entire building in order to get inside.

But like all of us who have been to the Roseland Ballroom, whether it was back in the 40s when the likes of Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller held court on its fabled side stage or over the last twenty years of legend-making live shows, this place will forever hold a special place on our foxtrotting, slam dancing, head nodding hearts. Here are five of my favorite shows from over the years. Thanks for the memories, Roseland.

1. Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes October 12, 1999

Chris Robinson almost never tucks in his shirt in concert. But when The Black Crowes hit the stage with Led Zeppelin guitar god Jimmy Page at the Roseland on October 12, 1999, the singer made sure he was dressed to impress as he stood beside one of his heroes on the very first show they performed together. The kickoff of a three-night stand at the Ballroom, I was in utter shock that I was able to nab a ticket to any of these shows, let alone the opening night. But with the Hammer of the Gods by my side, I was bestowed one general admission ticket to the event, one of the rare instances I was more than happy to hit a concert solo. Honestly, I didn’t know what was cooler: hearing the Crowes cajoling Page into cracking open his guitar tablatures on such deep Zep nuggets as “Custard Pie”, “Sick Again” and “Out of the Tiles”, or hearing Pagey play guitar on such indelible Black Crowes favorites as “Wiser Time”, “No Speak No Slave” and “Remedy”, not to mention tearing up the Robinsons’ famed covers of Elmore James’ “Shake Your Moneymaker” and Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle”. But it all came home the moment they busted out back-to-back versions of Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well” and “The Shapes of Things” from the Jeff Beck-era Yardbirds (though, in hindsight, a nod to Page’s tenure in the group with a cover of something off Little Games would have been super cool). Over 15 years later, this show remains the greatest thing I ever seen inside of a New York City club.

2. Pavement with GBV and the Dirty Three October 15, 1994

Biohazard/House of Pain might have been my first show at the Roseland, but my first meaningful concert at the venue was this mind-blowing triple bill in October of 1994. Watching a rather dapper looking Warren Ellis a good few years before his “wild man of Borneo” image took over during his years with Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds, Mick Turner and Jim White mesmerize the Roseland crowd with their baroque-noise instrumental rock was indeed a sight to see. Guided By Voices, high off a summer of accolades from the release of their legend-making Bee Thousand LP, brought a cooler onstage and pounded beers between songs and then surprised the audience by bringing The Breeders’ Kim Deal out to help Bob Pollard sing “The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory”.We thought we had all gotten our money’s worth already before Pavement took to the stage. But once the headliners kicked off their set by introducing the New York fans to “Grounded”, the best song off their then-upcoming album Wowee Zowee, it was a veritable feast of favorites for Pavement fans as the band tore through such choice nugs from 1992’s Slanted and Enchanted and that year’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain as “Silent Kid”, “Gold Soundz”, “Conduit For Sale”, “Brinx Job”, “Range Life”, “Two States”, “Trigger Cut”, “Debris Slide”, “Cut Your Hair” and “In Her Mouth a Desert” with such electricity and conviction that if they weren’t your favorite band walking into the Roseland that night, they sure as hell were walking out. If you didn’t see Pavement in 1994, you didn’t truly see Pavement.

3. Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros November 23, 1999 Joe Strummer’s pipebomb of a performance on Thanksgiving week of 1999 marked the only time I ever was lucky enough to have seen a concert from the storied VIP side stage of the Roseland. And it was a great eye-line view of Joe and his Mescaleros lay waste to the main stage of the Ballroom not unlike his old band The Clash did at Bond’s in Times Square just a few blocks away from the venue back in 1982. Though the show was theoretically in support of his new group’s debut album Rock Art and the X-Ray Style, Clash classics like “Safe European Home”, “White Riot”, “London Calling”, “White Man at Hammersmith Palais” and “Rudie Can’t Fail” dominated the set to the delight of those of us in the crowd who were too young to have seen The Clash in their heyday. The whole thing was filmed by HBO for their excellent and sadly short-lived live music series Reverb. Three years later, Strummer would be gone far too soon from us, having succumbed to complications from a congenital heart defect three days before Christmas in 2002. But the memory of seeing the Godfather of punk rock kicking a stage monitor at the venue’s security with all the piss and vinegar he brought with him to America in 1979 on The Clash’s first tour of the States still remains as vivid in my mind as the night it went down. RIP Joe.

4. Ween November 1, 2003

Back before he became the go-to keyboard wizard for the likes of Cibo Matto and Sean Lennon, Jared Samuel of Superhuman Happiness was one of the best buddies I had from my Long Island days. We had hit several concerts together back then, but the one that always sticks out in my mind was seeing Ween at the Roseland stop of their 2003 tour in support of their excellent ninth LP Quebec. Having seen Deaner and Gener several times since The Mollusk tour, this had to have been the best concert I had ever witnessed from New Hope, PA’s finest sons, as they and their top-notch band played just about every song you’d want to hear at a Ween concert on this night: “Golden Eel”. “Baby Bitch”. “Piss Up a Rope”. “Wavin My Dick”. “Voodoo Lady”. “Mutilated Lips”. “Roses Are Free”. “Bananas & Blow”. “You Fucked Up”. An acoustic set that included “Help Me Scrap the Mucus Off My Brain” and “Bithday Boy”. “Buckingham Green”. “Spinal Menengitis”. “The Mollusk”. “Ocean Man”. “Freedom of ’76”. “Big Jilm”. “The Blarney Stone”. They even encored with a better live version of Led Zeppelin’s In Through the Out Door ballad “All My Love” more superior than Pagey and the boys did on their final tour. Don’t believe me? Download the show at Archive.org and judge for yourself, kids!

5. Mos Def with Black Jack Johnson December 8, 2000

The headlining act at the Roseland stop of Rawkus Records’ Lyricist Lounge tour was the controversial NYC rap label’s then-reigning heavyweight champion Mos Def. But rather than do yet another solo set with a DJ and backing track, the artist currently known as Yasiin Bey assembled quite possibly the single best pound-for-pound supergroup ever assembled in Black Jack Johnson, comprised of Funkadelic’s Bernie Worrell on keys, Bad Brains guitarist Dr. Know and the Living Colour rhythm section of drummer Will Calhoun and Doug Wimbish on the bass. “Who said that black people can’t play rock?” Mos smirked at the crowd before blowing the mind of any rock-rooted soul in the hip-hop heavy audience with a set that started with the band free-riffing on Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun” before transforming such classic Mos Def cuts as “Umi Says” and “Ms. Fat Booty” as well as material written for a Black Jack Johnson album that never happened. In a year where rap-rock posturing was at an all-time high, it was so cool to see the Mighty Mos pimp slap the Fred Dursts of the world with a loaded glove of realness.