All that remains

I'm waxing a little nostalgic today because it's my birthday! I'm going to see quite a few of my old friends tonight to celebrate, and that makes me think of the many good times I had with them when we were younger. So much of it involved music and going to see our favorite bands play. All of us were into alternative music, not "arena rock" bands like Journey. No, we liked small, obscure bands that played in small, obscure venues. One of the venues where "our" bands would play in Denver was called the Rainbow Music Hall. It only seated about a thousand people, give or take a couple hundred, so any seat in the house was a good seat. I saw so many great bands there! The Violent Femmes played there on their first big tour in 1985, and Fishbone opened for them. What a show! Another one that really stands out in my memory was Siouxsie and the Banshees. Awesome! I even saw "Weird" Al Yankovic at the Rainbow. He was great! Alas, all good things come to an end, and in 1988 the Rainbow closed down. It was converted into a Walgreens, and I guess now the building has been demolished and replaced with a "better" Walgreens, or so I've heard. (I can't tell you how sad that makes me.) In October, Pat and I were shopping at Twist and Shout, a great record store in Denver, and I happened to look up and see this hanging from the ceiling. How could I not take a picture? I can't believe they somehow got a piece of our beloved Rainbow Music Hall! That's so cool!