It Still Makes Me Mad

Saturday afternoon, I took my daughter and one of her friends downtown to get a bite to eat and walk around.  The entire area was packed with people on the prettiest day so far of 2014.
We walked all around and then up the pedestrian street bridge over looking the Cumberland river.  While up there, I looked over to where the old thermal plant was and you can see the construction as they are turning it into a amphitheater.

“What is that?” My daughter asked.
“That is the new outdoor concert area.  It is gonna be like Starwood Amphitheater, I guess,” I replied.
“What is that?”
“An amphitheater is a place where you have outdoor concerts, ” I told her.
“No daddy, Starwood, what is that?”Stunned. I had no reply.
My daughter is 15 and doesn’t remember Starwood.  I explained to her and her friend, the cliff notes version, of the history of Starwood and the shows I saw there that immediately stood out to me.

Eddie Murphy-1986
Beastie Boys 1987
The Outfield/Night Ranger-1987
Jimmy Buffett-1989
New Kids on the Block-1990
KISS/Poison 2004
Motley Crue-2005 (Where I couldn’t hear for 2 weeks afterwards.)

 
There were many other shows too, but those are the ones that I rattled off quickly.
I told them there is nothing like sitting outside at an amazing concert and plenty of them rolled through Nashville in those years Starwood was open.  I cannot fully explain, I told them, how great of a feeling it is to be out in the grass watching a show or even down close, under the ‘building,’ because you were still outside.
Saturday night, was a Starwood kinda night.
I drove the girls past Starwood.
It made me mad.
It still makes me mad.
They would never get to experience this.

 
Or this
 

 
Instead, this is what is there now.
 
 

 
 

 
 

 
 
“Eww gross.” Came the reply from the girls.
The place that held a lot of memories for me as a young adult, now referred to as, ‘Eww gross.”
Starwood closed back in 2007 or 08, sometime around there because they were going to turn it into condo’s and do this and that, and instead, all we got was blah blah blah.
It just sits there now.
Over run with weeds.  Over run with bushes and pretty disgusting.
Yep, it still makes me mad.

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