![]() It was on those trips where I first laid eyes on the hulking, non-descript building across Barton Springs Road, nestled between a cafeteria and a skating rink, and calling itself the Armadillo World Headquarters. But soon I discovered the much closer Municipal Auditorium in Austin (the Long Center now occupies the site), where I caught a number of roadshows. Houston came first – a November trip with friends east on I-10 to catch the opening night of the Who’s 1975 tour at the Summit (now Joel Osteen’s mega-church). Album cover Commander Cody’s first live album recorded at the AWHQ They managed to land other types of touring shows – I remember seeing the Faces on their final tour, astounding shows at the Carver Center like the Art Ensemble of Chicago -but as a music-obsessed teen working for my college radio station, I was soon hitting the Texas highways to catch a lot of the shows I wanted to see. But lacking the affluence of other big cities, little spilled out beyond downtown.Īnd San Antonio was a heavy metal mecca. They had the Spurs, and a thriving tourist economy on the Riverwalk. Instead, what I found was a city rich in culture and history, but one that in many ways resembled the world’s largest small town. Relocating to San Antonio for college in the fall of 1975, I had expected to be swallowed up by a big city (it was the 10th largest city in the country in those days, it now ranks 7th in terms of population). I knew Willie Nelson, the Longhorns from watching college football, and the notoriety of Charles Whitman, but really, not much else. ![]() When I first arrived in Texas, my time in Austin was limited to a drive-through on I-35. (Learn about all of our plans for the 50th anniversary of Armadillo World Headquarters HERE)
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