The Night I Was Stranded At An Aerosmith Concert
38 years ago tonight a snow storm hit the northeast stranding hundreds at an Aerosmith concert and I was one of them! The storm whacked the area with 21 inches of snow, which doesn't sound overwhelming but the thing is, nobody expected the snow storm, let alone the blizzard it became.
On February 11, 1983, 9,600 fans made their way to the Springfield Civic Center to see the Pat Travers Band open for Aerosmith on the Rock In A Hard Place Tour. Once inside the general admission arena as we made our way to the floor, we passed a window to see that a snow storm was going on outside! Everything was fine an hour ago!
The audience was told that Aerosmith was late arriving from New York but they would be on stage shortly. Shortly turned out to be an 11pm start when the band kicked into Back In the Saddle followed by Mama Kin and Big Ten Inch. At about that time Steven Tyler said "There must be 6-10 inches of snow out there!".
Aerosmith closed their set at 12:45am with Train Kept a Rolling and we headed toward the door. By now the snow storm had turned to blizzard and the wind blew the snow so ferociously it was very difficult to see. We made our way toward the Holiday Inn in hopes that they would take us in for the night. We were among 200 that made it to the Holiday Inn.
Back at the Civic Center, the Operations Manager invited all to stay and approximately 400 took him up on that. Those that stayed were offered the floor of Civic Center Banquet Room. Around 3am fans were fed popcorn and soda and breakfast of donuts and coffee several hours later.
The OM collected names and as parents called through the night he would let parents know if their kids had stayed at the venue. With no cell phone you could imagine the long lines for the pay phones.
MassLive reported that some forecasters had called this the worst storm in 40 years! By the time the storm passed through the region it ranked among the top snowfall totals of all time. This 24 hour storm had an official total of 21.0 inches!
CHECK IT OUT: These words were born in the '80s
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