Note: Bangor Daily News archives dating back to 1911 are now available at newspapers.com. In order to fully access and search them, a separate subscription is required.
Despite the fact that pandemic-related capacity limits have been lifted for both indoor and outdoor venues, here in Maine, we’re all likely to be waiting at least another month or two before we see the full return of concerts.
While we’re eagerly anticipating getting back to normal, we thought we’d take a look back at some of the iconic bands and artists that visited Bangor in decades past. Long before there was a Darling’s Waterfront Pavilion or Cross Insurance Center, the big venue in town was, of course, the Bangor Auditorium.
While it was far from the modern, comfortable facilities we see in most cities today, back then, it was the top of the line for concert venues in Maine. Back in the early 1970s, the Bangor Daily News wasn’t the type of publication to actually write about rock bands, as evidenced by the fact that the sole mention of a December 1971 concert at the Bangor Auditorium from the legendary Sly and the Family Stone was in an article about how the city council wasn’t thrilled with the way private security ran the show.
In fact, many of the mentions of rock shows at the auditorium in the paper were in the form of advertisements, like this one for concerts in November and December of 1971, featuring the Allman Brothers Band and, later, Rod Stewart and the Faces. Ticket prices maxed out at $5.50.
Today, you can’t even get a beer for that price.
The BDN did give it up for the Man in Black, though, for one of his many appearances at the auditorium over the years. He played there with his wife, June Carter Cash, Carl Perkins, the Carter Family, the Statler Brothers and the Tennessee Three on April 20, 1972.
Later that year, Alice Cooper played at the auditorium on Oct. 28, 1971. The BDN didn’t run a story, but outdoors columnist Bud Leavitt managed to squeeze in a diss on Alice by saying that the Penobscot Valley Kennel Club dog show, held a few weeks later in November, was clearly the “handsomer offering.”
Flash forward to 1975, and one of the most famous concert tours of all time stopped in Bangor — Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, a star-studded affair that in Bangor featured Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Bobby Neuwirth. BDN reporter Rich Tozier reviewed the Nov. 28 concert favorably, though the headline noted that the $8.50 ticket price might have been a bit high.
The next year, no BDN reporter was brave enough to review the show from KISS on Friday, April 16, 1976, at the auditorium, but Janice Peters and Sheila Veino of Bangor sure were excited to go. They entered a contest held by local radio station WGUY to create an outrageous cake inspired by KISS. The prize? Backstage passes. We’re not worthy.
By the time the 1980s rolled around, tastes had changed yet again. Cheap Trick has played in Bangor numerous times now, but only one time were they accompanied by punk legends the Ramones. The Ramones in Bangor! Can you imagine? Did anyone see them? If so, email us and let us know.
Aerosmith had played Bangor once before in the early 1970s, but its 1984 show was a sellout. According to a photo that ran the day after the Aug. 14 show, people were packed in like sardines and a dozen people were kicked out for fighting. One person even got arrested.
A few months later, Hall and Oates actually kicked off their Big Bam Boom tour at the Bangor Auditorium on Oct. 26, 1984, after a week of rehearsals in Bangor. We’re not sure, but the below article might be one of the first, if not the first time rap had been mentioned in the BDN. Reporter Margaret Warner called it a “street corner music form.”
Concerts at the auditorium became less frequent by the late 1980s, though there were a few notable ones that took place — perhaps most famously, the 1993 show from then-newcomers Phish, on May 7 of that year.
They returned to the auditorium again the following year, and then came back to Maine in 1997 for what might be the three most famous performances of their entire career: The Great Went, a massive festival at the decommissioned Loring Air Force Base in Limestone. They had festivals there two more times afterwards: Lemonwheel, in 1998, and It, in 2003. Phish last played in Bangor in 2019, at the Darling’s Waterfront Pavilion.
These are just some of the concerts we’ve found in our archive on newspapers.com. What are some of your favorite memories of seeing shows at the Bangor Auditorium? Leave them in the comments.