So many great bands got recognition around the world by playing at CBGB“ Patti Smith, The Ramones, Sonic Youth, Television, Talking Heads, P.J. Harvey, Social Distortion, Yo La Tengo, and many, many more…
The club closed today, and headlining the show to celebrate the long history of the club was one of the first great artists to play there, Patti Smith.
New York Times story:
Last night was the last concert at CBGB (its full name was CBGB & OMFUG, for Country, Bluegrass and Blues and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers), the famously crumbling rock club that has been in continuous, loud operation since December 1973, serving as the casual headquarters and dank incubator for some of New York’s most revered groups - Ms. Smith’s, the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Television, Sonic Youth - as well as thousands more whose blares left less of a mark on history but whose graffiti and concert fliers might still remain on its walls.
After a protracted real estate battle with its landlord, a nonprofit organization that aids the homeless, CBGB agreed late last year to leave its home at 313 and 315 Bowery at the end of this month. And Ms. Smith’s words outside the club, where her group was playing, encapsulated the feelings shared by fans around the city and around the world: CBGB is both the scrappy symbol of rock’s promise and a temple that no one wanted to see go.
“CBGB is a state of mind,” she said from the stage in a short preshow set for the news media whose highlight was a medley of Ramones songs.“There’s new kids with new ideas all over the world,” she added. “They’ll make their own places - it doesn’t matter whether it’s here or wherever it is.”
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“When I go into a rock club in Helsinki or London or Des Moines, it feels like CBGB to me there,” Mr. [Lenny] Kaye said. “The message from this tiny little Bowery bar has gone around the world. It has authenticated the rock experience wherever it has landed.”
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