THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
Remembering Bronco Bowl
All things must pass, but the demise of the Bronco Bowl Theater was not an easy loss to handle for the Dallas-Fort Worth concert scene.
Razed to make way for a Home Depot, the 3,500-seat Oak Cliff theater had hosted countless acts in its 42 years – from Chuck Berry in the ’60s to up-and-comers such as U2 and R.E.M in the ’80s to Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen in the ’90s.
The Bowl was by no means a perfect venue. Its U-shaped design meant hundreds of fans had to put up with a side view of the stage. And thanks to a shoddy ventilation system, plenty a show turned into a steam bath. But it was the perfect-size theater – small enough that even the worst seats were fairly close to the stage, but big enough to hold the likes of Marilyn Manson, B.B. King and OutKast.
The 6,300-seat NextStage at Grand Prairie now books the performers who used to play the Bronco Bowl. But with its plush seats and luxury boxes, NextStage lacks a grungy ambience concertgoers had grown used to at the Bronco Bowl.
“It’s just not a rock ‘n’ roll venue,” former Bronco Bowl promoter Mark Lee says about NextStage. I’ve been in hospitals that are less sterile.”
“I’m willing to pour beer on the floor if that’s what it takes,” jokes NextStage general manager Derek Rauncheberger.
But even if NextStage gets gritty, it’ll never have the one thing that made the Bronco Bowl unique: bowling lanes.
According to Dallas music scenester George Gimarc: “I can’t remember how many times I’d see the bands throwing down some games on the lanes before the show and saying, “I can’t believe we’re playing a bowling alley!”
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