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Cain's Ballroom in Top 10

Started by GG, May 09, 2012, 09:08:15 PM

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GG

http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/play/best-usa-travel/10-fabulous-us-music-venues-639998?page=0%2C1

10 fabulous U.S. music venues

Cain's Ballroom, Tulsa, Oklahoma

In what has to be one of the most incongruous pairings of band and venue, the Sex Pistols played the historic Cain's Ballroom in Tulsa in 1978 on one of only seven stops on their U.S. tour.

To this day, a framed piece of drywall Sid Vicious ostensibly punched a hole through commemorates the historic gig at the even more historic venue.

The Pistols were just passing through, but in generations past, the hallowed hall was home turf for Wills and His Texas Playboys, who broadcast their performances on national radio here on KVOO from 1934 to 1942 and would routinely pack more than 1,000 dancers onto the supposedly spring-loaded maple dance floor.

Originally intended to be a garage when it was built in 1924, the building instead became Cain's Dance Academy in 1930 -- its neon sign still advertises "ballroom dancing" -- and finally a music venue in 1976.

Others who have filled the floor at the Cain's include everyone from Ernest Tubb, Tex Ritter, and Tennessee Ernie Ford to The Strokes, Metallica and Elvis Costello.

Still going strong, the Cain's manages to be both a landmark in the National Register of Historic Places and a pioneering live venue where you're as likely to see the Josh Abbott Band and the National Fiddler Hall of Fame Induction as The Polyphonic Spree and dubstep deejay Excision.

423 North Main St., Tulsa, Okla.; +1 918 584 2306; www.cainsballroom.com
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