NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Nashville’s first outdoor concert venue, Starwood Amphitheatre, revolutionized how concertgoers experienced shows with iconic artists like Aerosmith, Journey and Steely Dan.
The venue’s legacy lives on in pictures and stories from attendees.
“If you are an old hippie, that was the place to go,” Starwood Amphitheatre photographer Bill Thorpe explained. “It had a mixture of everything for everybody. It was just a magical place.”
On the corner of Hobson Pike and Murfreesboro Road in Antioch, the 65-acre site known as Starwood Amphitheatre opened in 1986 as Nashville’s first outdoor venue.
“Before that, it was a municipal auditorium,” Thorpe said. “People in Nashville called it ‘The miserable auditorium.'”
The first event of many events at the amphitheater was WKDF’s “One For The Sun ” store
“As patrons were coming down Plaza One, they were sticking to the asphalt and getting black asphalt on the bottom of their [shoes] — everything was just sparkling, brand-new,” Starwood Amphitheatre marketing director, Mary Gellott, said.
“It was like one great party,” owner of Sidekicks Cafe and prior Starwood concertgoer Cathy Hoormann expressed. “It was like a family.”
The venue remained Nashville’s primary outdoor music venue until 2006 when the venue closed.
“No, Starwood? How can that be?” Hoormann said. “It was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I lost a friend.”
“It was one of those things in time that come along, and they don’t last, but they’re part of the fabric of Nashville,” Steve Moore, Executive Director of Starwood Amphitheater, said.
The property where the venue sat is empty, but it’s remembered as a place where music and magic collide.
“There was a pit underneath the stage where photographers would go, and Eric [Clapton] was right there, and I was [below him],” Thorpe described. “…He was playing ‘Layla’ hunkered down, and the sweat was dripping, so I actually had Eric Clapton’s sweat drip on me. It was gross, but it was pretty cool.”
“They got a dump truck, and they had 103 people in the dump truck for $20 come through the gates,” Moore said, explaining it was $20 per car for attendees.
Starwood’s historical musical guests hang frozen in time at Sidekicks Cafe in Madison.
“I want people to know what this area is, what our community is and that’s the foundation,” Hoormann said.
“I think that Starwood really deserves a lot of credit for creating the concert market that Nashville has become,” Moore said.
The future of the Starwood property is yet to be seen, but its music will never die.
“It always was Starwood. It always will be,” Gellott said.
