Thursday, January 25, 2007

The Igloo

Amid the current furor and public clamor for a new hockey/concert arena in Pittsburgh, the Post-Gazette’s Brian O’Neill recounts the early days of the Civic Arena, also known as “The Igloo” and currently sporting the corporate-sponsored moniker of “Mellon Arena.”

Built in 1961, the Civic Arena was originally conceived as a venue for the Civic Light Opera. Over the years, the building has played host to the Pittsburgh Penguins, various circuses, truck and tractor pulls, wrestling extravaganzas, the Ice Capades and thousands of memorable concerts.

Many people today don’t realize the arena was built with a retractable roof, which no longer operates. Like Brian O’Neill, Joey Porter’s Pit Bulls attended the same Bob Dylan concert played with the roof open on an early summer evening. Dylan did his usual thing, which was to play dozens of songs you know but wouldn’t necessarily recognize because he rendered them in entirely new melodies or arrangements that were throughly entertaining anyway.

We saw another concert, by Pink Floyd, when the roof opened during the concert. All of a sudden, during “Dark Side of the Moon,” the roof began to retract, the band continued to play, and thousands of stoned fans looked aloft in wonderment as the hovering cumulous cloud of smoke above them wafted into the starlit sky. “Whoa-oohhh.”

A lot of people today say the Civic Arena is a dump, and it probably is. But we’ve always been fond of it.

We've always been fond, too, of the beauteous feminine pulchritude that is Shania Twain. That's her in the photos, by the way -- in concert, yup, you guessed it, at the Civic Arena.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

While I don’t get to many events at the igloo anymore, I have so many great memories. Too many to name here. The one that stands out most -- while listening to Eric Clapton play “Let it Rain” with the roof open, it actually started to rain. The crowd went crazy
I was in the crowd one New Years Eve seeing what turned out to be Elvis’s last Pittsburgh appearance.
I saw Crosby, Stills, and Nash with the roof open (Was too stoned to remember if Young was with them, I doubt it though, I think I would have remembered)
As a teenager, we went to just about every concert that came to town just for something to do. (That’s when the price of a ticket was no more than $4.00)
Didn’t it seem that they opened the roof all the time, or is that one of those same life memories that made us think it snowed several feet every other day when we were kids?
My worse memories are of taking my kids and all there friends to those Disney on Ice or Sesame Street things. God that was horrible.
When they got a little older we graduated into the wrestling matches, and now, things have come full circle and they attend concerts there. (Not for $4.00 though)
Yes, I will be sad to see it go.

Dr. Paul Shemp said...

Have Mercy! I love Shania Twain. It's not the amazing body or the gorgeous face. It's not the voice or the fame or the money or the homes. It's the body. Wait, did I say it wasn't that? Okay, so I lied...

Joey Porter’s Pit Bulls said...

Yeah, Shania Twain. I don't even listen to her music, but she sure is easy on the eyeballs. Yowza! What a creature!