On top of the World Cup, new Spanish verb tenses (pluscuamperfecto???!!!), the heat, and my mother’s broken ankle, I’ve been thinking about the Arcadia and the block of Lower Greenville that burned down a few weeks back in Dallas.
In summer of 1988, about 18 years ago, I dragged Chris McKee down to the Arcadia to see a “Monsters of Rock” show, which included a pretty heavy line up of Three on a Hill, Shallow Reign, and a group which would eventually become Course of Empire. I was really into Shallow Reign at the time, and Chris went along because he likes live shows.
The concert was great, we yucked it up (bryan’s way of saying he wasn’t old enough to drink, though Chris was), and I bought a red shirt with the Shallow Reign logo. I proceeded to wear that shirt with great frequency over the next few years. It was red at the advice of Chris, who had commented that “everyone else had black or white.” Ten years later, Mitch asked me if the shirt was brand new (as it appeared to be). Maybe it was the brand of t-shirt, maybe the band (who collapsed in a cloud of cocaine by 1990), or perhaps it was the venue.
What made the shirt last? I’m saying the venue, the Arcadia. The Arcadia was the type of place where you could go to an eclectic show with a khaki-wearing friend and stand in a crowd of alternativos all clad in black.
That monsters of rock show wasn’t my first visit to the Arcadia, but certainly one of the more memorable ones. I’d seen several Three on a Hill shows in the venue already, and also a band known briefly as Havana 3AM, who featured non other than Paul Simonon, the former bassist of the Clash.
To a great extent, I was more happy at the Arcadia than at any other venue in Dallas.
That same summer, I had the chance to see Erasure play one of their campy shows. It turned out to be a significant bonding moment between my sister and me. I had asked a rather popular girl from my high school (I had just graduated) to attend the show, and she had accepted. However, two hours before the show started, the girl blew me off. I was so upset that I almost didn’t go to the concert. My sister had tickets, too, and was going with some other friends. She told me to come on, anyway. In the end, we stood curb side waiting to enter the Arcadia for the show, sharing a bottle of MadDog 20/20. Now if that’s not about the cutest big sister-little brother story you’ve ever heard…
For sure (whoops, sorry about the Valley Girl reference), I saw every show I could at the Arcadia. The Alarm played an excellent show there (my first opportunity to be able to look directly into Mike Peters’ eyes from 10 feet away), TOAH, and a handful of Course of Empire shows. This was early, early CÖE; their guitarist wasn’t old enough to drink alcohol there, either. We both lacked three more years before we would be legal.
I caught the odd show there over the next several years when I was home from college. By 1993, though, it was no longer a venue for live shows, but instead had been converted to a disco. I never was that heavy into the club scene, but in 92-93, my favorite bar, the London Tavern, was right next door, so I’d make the odd appearance in the disco periodically, mostly to see if I knew any of the Arcadia dancers (those girls that get to dance on the platforms high above the floor).
As the decade progressed, I moved away from the club scene and onto the pub scene. The London Tavern closed (and relocated to Addison, where I rediscovered it years later when playing soccer at Inwood).
Though I was spending most of the time at the Dubliner, and later the Monk, I still kept abreast of the places in the vicinity of the Arcadia, particularly Nuevo Leon, an excellent Mexican restaurant.
It’s no shock to anyone that I’m a huge fan of Mexican food, and I’ve always found N.L. to be super tasty. I found plenty of opportunities to eat there once I moved to Little Goliad, which was 4 minutes staggering distance away.
One brilliant occasion, I walked down to N.L. to meet Pablo and some folks for dinner, but arrived a bit early. Tom Lambert showed bit early, too, and he and I seized the opportunity to have five or six margaritas each as we waited for everyone else. I can’t remember all that much about the rest of the evening, but Tom and I had an excellent time.
Since then, I’ve enjoyed their margaritas (frozen or rocks) regularly. My last visit was about a year ago with Paula, my Colombian friend who was helping me learn Spanish. We rocked out to frozen margaritas and drew diagrams (including one of my brain) and wrote Spanish phrases on the table cloth for several hours. And we got home safely.
Now, as that block of my home town no longer exists, I have only the memories to hold on to. It’s a bit of a new experience for me, finding that physical places from my past have disappeared. However, I’m not the first one to have these feelings, and I certainly won’t be the last.
keep the faith
bryan
Finnegan’s 11/7/06
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