Today's nostalgia burst: Old Glory at Six Flags over Mid-America

Back in the day (apparently 1982, and 1984), I remember waiting what seemed like forever to enter the Old Glory Theater (Old Glory Amphitheatre?) all the way in the back of Six Flags over Mid-America (now Six Flags over St. Louis), by the Screamin' Eagle, to see The Beach Boys. I was early in my K-12 stint for those shows, which I remember as magical, even if the wait in the hot, humid Missouri summer was interminable. Anyway. Apparently, a bunch of bands played there back in the day, including several I’d love to see today: “Johnny Cash, Olivia Newton John, Kansas, Foreigner, Blue Oyster Cult, Head East, Tears For Fears, Night Ranger, Weird Al, Willie Nelson, Chuck Berry, The Orleans, Paul Revere And The Raiders, Electric Light Orchestra, Charlie Daniels, Toto, Ted Nugent, REO Speedwagon, The Commodores, Salt And Peppa, Randy Travis, Marshall Tucker Band, Garth Brooks, Reba, Oak Ridge Boys, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Kenny Rogers, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, The Monkees, R.E.M., Kool And The Gang, Britney Spears, and New Kids On The Block.”

Another source on the Internet says, about today’s economics: “In 2016 the head PR person at the park told me that part of the problem was that the bands people were able/willing to pay to see had such high performance prices that it wasn't financially feasible anymore and bands with lower costs just didn't sell enough tickets (or tickets at a high enough price) to cover the cost. So essentially the park would lose money on most performances. The days of the park providing a "free" show are also no longer cost effective for them. She also indicated that the bands the park could afford to pay brought in a crowd that created a lot of security issues. So in other words higher costs for musicians coupled with worsening crowd behavior pretty much made all performances untenable.” I have no way of easily verifying that, but it rings true.

Old Glory Ampitheatre with a crowd seated, from above

Admission was (for most acts?) included in the price of park entry, and since we always had season passes...

Growing up in the 80s and early 90s was so different. Now, so much is just abandoned and left to decay, if it still exists at all.

(On a related note, why were we so “country” back then? I remember John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together, Kenny Rogers and the Muppets, pre-Rural Purge TV shows that survived in syndication and were still staples, 10+ years later (I had a Dukes of Hazzard themed birthday cake at least two years in a row, probably more?). We were a pretty solidly suburban family (we drove into “the city” for Steamers games regularly, I loved the Union Station mall, etc., etc.), and I don’t really remember my parents being all that rural. Well, my dad grew up on the family farm about 100 miles outside of St. Louis, but escaped for Chicago and then St. Louis as soon as he could; mom was always an urban/suburban fan of 1960s folk and “oldies” rock and roll... But now that I think about it, I mean, she still decorates her home in brown wood antiques (many she’s refinished herself), we used to go to the country market that would situate in the Chesterfield Mall on weekends, where I thought homemade candles were the coolest thing ... Maybe it was the wood paneling and earth tones?) (And as long as we’re going down rabbit holes ... Anyone remember K•B Toys (formerly Kay-Bee) at that mall? Or the copy-cat competitor for a few years, K&K Toys? The toy section at Sears? Babbages, back when they had an Apple II section (etc.)? Riding my bike to Spicer's 5&10 to buy cheap candy and Monogram models and Testors supplies. Library Ltd and Software Plus, where I could find the tech books no one else carried. ComputerCity, where I worked for a bit and where all sorts of relatively esoteric hardware could be sourced (I still have my 8-pin serial to Centronics 36-pin parallel port PowerPrint adapter/cable somewhere, and several copies of Linux magazines I picked up from the stands there, where things like how to program GUIs in Tcl/Tk were covered). (Of course, ComputerCity was bought by CompUSA, and then CompUSA disappeared, too. Fry’s is gone. We still have Micro Center, for now...)

Sigh. I’m getting old.