Looks like live music fiends may be catching shows at three fewer venues in San Francisco for the rest of '08 due to recent shakeups at the Warfield, Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and the Cow Palace.
Peep these developments:
The Warfield: I stumbled upon this Craigslist post yesterday under the Gigs: Talent heading -
Warfield to become comedy venue (downtown / civic / van ness)
Reply to: gigs-625647918@craigslist.org Date: 2008-03-31, 3:56PM PDT
The Warfield theater will be closing it's doors this May after a very long run. My production company has signed a long-term lease with the theater to run a full-time comedy venue. This Summer, we open our doors as the Frisco Comedy Palace. We are now recruiting local and national comedy acts. Please be in touch ASAP with your headshots and bios. Send to the email address above. We're also looking for acts that will double as wait staff, audio controllers and ticket staff.
Burt Largess
General Manager
Frisco Comedy Palace
The Warfield exclusively a comedy venue? Um, a sole Craigslist posting = not the most credible source. A search on Google for "Frisco Comedy Palace" and "Burt Largess" yielded zero results besides the ad. Can you say hoax? How about cock-and-bull?
But further investigation revealed no concerts are scheduled at the Warfield following a Phil Lesh five-night stand ending May 18. The only event listed after that is comedian Jim Gaffigan on Nov. 7. Hmmm.
To confuse the matter even further, Aidin Vaziri reported in today's Chronicle that the Warfield has a new promoter, AEG Live, because Live Nation's lease expires in May, thus providing a possible explanation as to why no concerts are scheduled after May. Maybe AEG just hasn't gotten around to finalizing/ announcing concerts at the downtown venue.
And it looks like the AEG deal has been in place for some time, but this is the first I've heard about it.
Let's hope the Frisco Comedy Palace remains a criminally untrue rumor. I mean, I've seen Dave Chappelle at the Warfield - great show, let me tell you - but the theater is so perfectly suited for rock concerts, nevermind the occasional dickhead security, that it'd be sacrilege to deny live bands on its stage.
Who knows? Maybe concerts at the Warfield will continue uninterrupted despite the promoter change. I'll follow this more closely from now on.
Bill Graham Civic Auditorium: Closed for renovations as of March 31, and according to a blurb in the San Francisco Chronicle, it will reopen in 6 months to one year all new and improved-like. I recently witnessed a kickass Tool show there, so let's hope it's sooner rather than ...
Cow Palace: The fate of this longtime venue, technically located in Daly City, looks bleak. The city of Daly City, along with Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, are aggressively fighting for a deal to purchase the land, demolish the facility and sell it to a developer with plans to build a supermarket, elementary school and other businesses and residences on site.
Today's Chronicle reported that the State Senate offered temporary amnesty for the Cow Palace by holding off on approving a bill that would declare the land surplus property, thus allowing the sale to proceed and the building razed.
I don't know about this one.
Yeah, the Cow Palace - which more often stages rodeos, livestock events and other niche conventions - isn't my number one choice for watching a rock concert. It's big and smelly - an armpit, if you will.
And plunking a supermarket on this land would certainly give residents of the admittedly downtrodden area more access to healthy food - a definite upgrade from the myriad shitty convenience stores and KFC/Taco Bell on the corner.
But I have such fond memories of the Cow Palace ... seeing Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Disney on Ice ... my mum saw the Beatles there as a screaming 12-year-old. Think of the cool bands that could play there in the future.
I vote for keep it.
With dead presidents galore dangling so temptingly in front of politicians with this deal, it'd be a safe bet to say R.I.P. Cow Palace. You will be missed.
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