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Tacoma, WA 09/02/2006; Tacoma Dome
Topic Started: Sep 6 2008, 04:59 PM (644 Views)
mouser
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September 2, 2006

Tacoma Dome
2727 E D St
Tacoma, WA 98421
(253) 272-3663

SEATING CAPACITY: 22,500

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THE TACOMA DOME:

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Tacoma Dome opens its doors on April 21, 1983.
HistoryLink.org Essay 5154


On April 21, 1983, the Tacoma Dome opens its doors as one of the largest wood domed structures in the world. It is owned and operated by the City of Tacoma's Public Assembly Facilities Department and can accommodate up to 23,000 seats in a variety of configurations.

Construction of the 152-foot-high dome involved 1.6 million board feet of lumber (all supplied by the Weyerhaeuser company), and enough concrete to build a sidewalk 70 miles long. Cost of construction was $44 million. The Dome uses the Varax system developed by Hollis Scott and Marshall Turner of Western Wood Structures of Beaverton, Oregon. The system makes a framework out of triangular units of timber laminated and glued together, called glulams. Each of these prefabricated triangular units weighs 5,000 pounds, and there are 288 of them in the structure. The glulams, made from old growth Douglas fir from Oregon, are connected by steel hubs and held together at the base by a concrete tension ring.

The design and construction team, Tacoma Dome Associates, included lead architect McGranahan, Messenger Associates, contractor Jimmy Zarelli (Merit Company), and Marshall Turner and his Western Wood Structures.

The first sporting event scheduled for the new facility was the World's Toughest Rodeo, which took place from April 29 to May 1, 1983. The first musical event was David Bowie on August 11, 1983. The venue quickly turned Tacoma into the music capital of the Northwest with stars such as Dolly Parton, Prince, Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen, and Neil Diamond making appearances there. It also became the favored venue for state and regional high school sports events.

The implosion of the Kingdome in Seattle on March 26, 2000, made the Tacoma Dome the largest in the state.



SETLIST:

"Jailhouse Rock" (Entrance) ( Elvis Presley )
"Hollywood Nights" ( Bob Seger )
"Livin' For The City" ( Stevie Wonder )
"Do I Make You Proud"
"Takin' It To The Streets" (Encore) ( The Doobie Brothers


MEDIA AND REVIEW:

Sweet on Taylor Hicks
By Misha Berson

Seattle Times arts critic
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20060901&slug=hickschick01

This year's winner of "American Idol," Taylor Hicks, is scheduled to perform Saturday in Tacoma with other "AI" contestants.

Concert preview

American Idols Live Tour 2006, 7 p.m. Saturday at the Tacoma Dome, 2727 East D. St., Tacoma. Tickets are still available at $38.50 and $48.50; www.ticketmaster.com or 206-628-0888.
By most indicators, I should not be interested in TV's juggernaut talent show "American Idol" — or at least, not admit to it.

I tend to frequent symphony halls and jazz clubs, not monster pop venues like the Tacoma Dome, where the American Idols Live Tour 2006 lands Saturday night.

I detest how overhyped and redundant the mainstream pop music scene has become, and I barely know one preening new pop diva from another these days.

And sure, on the cheese-o-meter, "American Idol" is a big ol' slab of Velveeta.

But a funny thing happened to me last spring. I started taping "American Idol." I even cared who won. Why?

Two words: Taylor Hicks.

Taylor-mania

The raw-voiced, highly animated, gray-haired soul singer from Alabama hooked me. And, in the understatement of the year, I'm not alone.

Formerly obscure and markedly untrendy, the 29-year old Hicks was crowned the new Idol after generating (yikes!) some 63 million viewer votes. His huge fan base (dubbed The Soul Patrol) now tracks his every move, concocts drooling video montages in his honor, contributes to his favorite charities and defends his talent with sometimes scary fervor.

For a taste of Taylor-mania, check out the plethora of Web sites, blogs and myspace.com pages devoted to Hicks. Or the hundreds of Hicks performance and homage videos fans have posted on the popular YouTube.com video site.

So what has this guy got, anyway?

I'm coming to that. But before the flaming e-mails start torching my inbox, allow me to backtrack.

There is nothing we Americans love better than fervent yet meaningless competitive events. So to rabid fans of Hicks' rival "AI" contestants, I say: Go in peace. To each her or his own.

Nor can I find fault with my rock-critic colleagues who diss and dismiss the "American Idol" frenzy as a craven schlock-a-thon.

They have every reason to be cynical about manufactured celebs — and to wonder if Hicks is just a flash-on-the-tube who can't repeat the success of such previous Idols as Kelly Clarkson and Fantasia.

I have no idea whether Hicks' proverbial 15 minutes of fame are nearly up, or if he has the musical chops to sustain a major career.

You can't judge that by Saturday's Tacoma concert, part of a grueling, pre-fab national tour that has Hicks, runner-up Katharine McPhee and eight other 2006 "AI" finalists covering oldies for screaming crowds. I'm also giving Hicks a pass for his pallid hit recording, "Do I Make You Proud?" — the obligatory bad debut single from the "AI" machine.

But that the Great Gray Hope made it this far, against all odds, amazed and ... well, OK, really pleased me.

Winning ways

In my view, here's how he did it:

• His sound. Hicks' R&B-inflected singing often is compared to the vocal stylings of fellow soul-wailers like Joe Cocker, Michael McDonald and Hicks' main man: the incomparable Ray Charles.

But Taylor's whisky-and-honey tenor is actually quite distinctive, and suffused with emotion. Sure, he has to be careful not to oversing a song to shreds, a la Michael Bolton.

But in his best "AI" turns, his pre-"Idol" recordings (easily heard on the Internet) and his recent late-night, post-concert club dates with his old band (the Little Memphis Blues Orchestra), Hicks delivers a funk, twang and old-school soul punch that has long been missing (and missed) at the top of the pop charts.

• His look. Simon Cowell, "AI" 's snarky British judge, told Hicks his prematurely gray locks would doom his chances on the show.

Sit down, Simon.

Look beyond those buff, boyish heartthrobs, like Taylor-disser Justin Timberlake. To Hicks' legion of (predominately female) fans, he's one fine, strapping dude — a real Joe rather than a model off the celebrity-factory assembly line.

His aw-shucks, Southern gentleman charm doesn't hurt, either. And the silver-fox aura is a Freudian two-fer: It gives young girls a paternal charge, and women twice Hicks' age the illusion that he's both a son and a peer.

• His dues-paying. Hicks spent years playing every Deep South club, music fest and dive that would have him.

So why did he need "AI" to make it?

By the same token, why did a killer band called the Hawks have to back up Bob Dylan before they struck gold and renamed themselves The Band?

Now relax — I'm not equating The Band's artistry with that of a guy who hasn't yet recorded his first major album. My point: The world is loaded with talented musicians who never catch a lucky break. In fact, the chance of doing so rivals the odds of winning big at Lotto.

Hicks is sometimes written off as a "bar singer." But that may be no insult. Those years in the woodshed paid off in the assurance and showmanship he displayed when he got his shot.

• His moves and grooves. Last but not least, like many a soulman before him, Hicks knows how to get a crowd worked up.

His exuberant, untutored dancing has been disparaged as spastic, goofy, herky-jerky, punch-drunk and worse.

But that spirited spontaneity makes a welcome contrast to the elaborately packaged, tiresomely homogenous choreography now common in music videos and elaborate live shows.

And I'm old enough to recall the drubbing Mick Jagger took for his truly quirky moves in Rolling Stones concerts, and the hullabaloo about Elvis and his famous pelvis.

Watching someone move naturally and joyfully to music may be utterly foreign to our current mass-entertainment aesthetic. But it's another reason Taylor Hicks became the newest, and unlikeliest, American Idol.

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com




SOUL PATROL MEMORIES:

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Edited by mouser, Jan 15 2010, 10:51 AM.
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