It’s a Tuesday night, March 5, 1991 in downtown Edmonton, and a relatively unknown band from Seattle named Nirvana is about to take the stage in an eighty-year-old brick building, now housing an alternative club called The Bronx. Over the next three decades numerous bands, too many to count, will follow suit and adorn the stage at the end of the uneven sloped floor.
As you can probably tell from my previous posts, when I travel I often look for significant historic landmarks and/or venues and then muse about them here on my website. The more I've researched and visited these locations, the more I've started to realize the importance of our very own music venue right here in Edmonton. Memories are vividly clear of a crowd soaked in “blood” after a Gwar performance or the rumours that a band by the name of Bad Omen reportedly threw cow brains and hearts into the crowd. Some of the stories have become almost urban legends in this town and the common denominator has often been this historic venue.
The building has gone through numerous name changes over the years, and with that, a slightly different demographic, but a few things never seemed to change. It has always attracted a fringe or alternative crowd, music has always stayed at the forefront, and the interior has seen very little change at all.
Over the last three or four years, now in my forties, I find myself frequenting this establishment more than ever before. When I walk into what is now known as The Starlite Room, I always allow myself to reminisce a little. The dancing cages are long gone but the sweat from a thousand dance floors and mosh pits still hangs in the air – the history is never lost on me. It has, in the last few years, found its wayback to, in my opinion, its true calling as a mostly rock/punk music venue.
I’m grateful that very little has changed. I would put this place up against any music venue I’ve been to in LA, New York, London or Paris. You still enter through a dark narrow hallway, it’s still hot and sweaty, the bar is still limited, the floor is still sloped, but it carries with it an indescribable vibe. It’s as historic and important as any I’ve encountered - and it’s ours.
