Memories of the Erwin Center Part 3

Back to our discussion of the Frand Erwin Center with former directors John Graham, Jimmy Earl and Liz Land.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Memories of the Frank Irwin Center.Hope you enjoying the podcast. I can
tell you we had a lot offun just sitting around the round table and
discuss the story. So let's getback to our conversation with Jimmy Earl,
John Graham and Liz Land, Partthree of Memories of the Frank Irwin Center.
And I used to love the IrwinCenter posters, as you guys would

(00:21):
post up those are okay, andJimmy yeah, and Jimmy's pointing to Liz
right now. I mean great artwork. Of course, Austin's got a
history great artwork with the Armadillo andeverything we do have. We did have
some really great artists, but wewere also able to use the show art
that they provided us. So Ilove those neon posters. But it was
Austin, I mean that's what itwas. It was. It was perfect

(00:42):
and everything. I'm sure you stillhave a lot of those posters, right
John, I have some, imagineLiz has quite a fewer had access to
those. I have this pile.I mean, I have to go through
these right now. I was lookingat these, at these backstage passes and
the posters. I've got some thatsome backstage passes that were not picked up

(01:03):
for some reason. I ended upwith him and uh one of them here
was for a C d C.And Arthur Dilly, who was with UT
Systems, apparently didn't pick up thesepast I could. I'm trying to imagine
Arthur Dilley coming to a c dC. That's that's I think he was
a vice chancellor or something. Yeah, he was, he was a chancellor

(01:26):
vice chancellor. Yeah, for theUT Systems it probably was. And a
C d C shows those were greattoo. And I do have a quick
story about a c d C whichtour which we had. I think it
was the Money Tour or something likethat. Anyway, my son at the
time was an a c d Cfan, but more importantly he was a

(01:49):
beaversoon butt heead fan and I listenJimmy might recall that one of the other
radio stations in town, KLBJ,was doing some promotions, of course with
the show, and they managed toget a local guy who had some Beavis
and Butthead experience. Guys, what'sthe guy's name with Beavis and Butthead who

(02:10):
was there in Austin, Mike MikeJudge, Mike Judge did some voiceovers for
the a c d C concert asBeavers and Butthead talking about the show.
So we go get my son backstageto meet a c DC to do a
little meet and greet afterwards, andMike Judge is sitting there waiting for a

(02:30):
c DC to come out and comeinto the the room downstairs where they did
those things. And he hears MikeJudge start to speak because Beavis and Budded
nobody knows what the guy looks like. And my son's he comes. He
says, Dad, that's that's theguy. That's the guy. I said,
what do you mean, that's theguy. That's that's the guy,
that's that's Beavers and butthead. Hewas more impressed by that as well.

(02:53):
Let's go and introduce you to Mike. You know, oh no, no,
no, no, he like hewasn't worthy, and so I said,
one was four impressed by Beavis andbutt Head voiceover then actually a c
d C when they came into theroom. So those were some great,
great times we had to do.That's a great show too, ac DC.
You were a mock concert. There'sone for you. So many great

(03:14):
concerts there. Tom Petty I sawTom Petty every year. Of course,
Paul McCartney, Wow, Jimmy showingus some most pictures right now. I
mean, yeah, you talk aboutgreat memories, but also right here with
coughing cedar fever down here. Still, that's what it is, John,
But I mean the you would alsosee celebrities in the audience watching the show

(03:38):
with you. I remember, Ithink it was an Elton John concert and
we had good tickets. But oneof the Righteous Brothers was in front of
me watching the show. I don'tknow what he was doing in Austin.
I'm thinking Bill Medley's got seats andthis show this is cool. You never
know who you were going to seein the audience there when center true.
I remember seeing Sandra Bullock at theSting show. Was back in the day

(04:00):
when she was dating Bob Schneider.Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah,
I remember that one very well.I got a I got a call
from her agent with CIA, andwe had done many shows with CIA as
well, and I caused, hesaid, we're trying to get some tickets
for Sandra Bullock and I'm thinking,are you kidding me? I thought,

(04:24):
I wasn't sure this is a realcall and uh, but that's that's what
they would do. They would,you know, anybody that can help us
get get tickets. And so Idid end up getting the tickets and lo
and behold there was Sandra Bullock sittingabout just off the Red River entrance about
eight rows up. I think,how about how about I don't know if

(04:46):
you remember this, but I remembermeeting Oprah Rimfrey. She was doing a
story on Michael Bolton. Yeah,that's right, and she was just sitting
back there on some pallettes or somethingwaiting for the showed then and uh,
that's cool. I kind of walkedup and introduced myself and wow, that's
so Yeah. And also the politiciansObama came tell us about that, not

(05:14):
not the president but his wife,Michelle Obama. We met her. She's
quite a quite a lady. Butwe've had presidents of uh you know,
we had Bill Clinton, and wehad Bush. Bush did his debate prepped
there. We had even though he'snot he wasn't had Vice President Bush a

(05:39):
time or two, President of Mexico. We had several heads of state over
the years. Uh. You know, well, Bush announced his uh his
running mate in the Lone Star Roomin the bern Orange Room run Dick Cheney.
That announcement was made in there,and also then they were going to
they did these follow remember, becausethey had the Hanging Chad business in Florida,

(06:01):
and they kept the Lone Star Roomavailable for quite some time so they
could do press conferences in there.That kept going on and on and on.
Of course, it went on forweeks until that could be decided.
It kind of disrupted our operations becausethe Secret Service tried to maintain a security
envelope in that area. Right.You know, we've talked about concert or

(06:23):
talking about sporting events. One thingalso that the Erwinsenter being such a landmark,
it was also the site for afew funerals as well that we had,
uh you know, well of coursethe namesake Frank Erwin lighting state there
right if you're open, Frank Irwindidn't have Clarba Jordan, uh yes,

(06:45):
Coach Currito Broyle, Coach Royal,Reception, Coach Royal and Mike Mike Campbell.
We had several Yeah, we had, I mean it was it was
more than a concert venue. Itwas just a very space. But John,

(07:05):
when you left, did you takeanything from me? Not that I'm
trying to get anything back from you. But did you take anything from the
Irwin Center special or is there onething that you wish that you could have
taken with you for more memories?Well, i'd still like to and Liz,
they know where these are. Istill wanted to get one of those
street banners for Paul McCartney. That'swhat's I'd hang that up in my basement
here, you know. I wishI wouldn't have taken one of those.

(07:28):
Well, no, I didn't takeanything special other than I did manage to
make copies of a lot of thecontracts over the years because I thought someday
i'd write this book that I've beenworking on, and so I have copies
of almost every contract of every showthat was that we had over the years,
just to provide reference on some thingsthat I would have in my journal.

(07:50):
But no, I had those memories. I had the years that I
worked there, which were great.And boy, I tell you Liz and
Jimmy not just co workers, butand they know this that they're great friends
and always will be. And therewere so many other folks. When you
have a place like that that it'sa village, and the people that come
there to work. It's their firstjob. And as Jimmy said, they

(08:13):
paid bills and mortgages and cars,and some of them have kids and some
of them pass away over the years. It's just a lot of combination of
great memories and some melancholy sadness thingsover as well. And watching the venue
look the way it is kind ofhas that that feel to it as well.
But well, I was also Iwas just thinking, I just pulled
up something here on the Dalai Lama. If you remember that, Jimmy,

(08:37):
And yes, yes I do rememberDali Lama spoke at the Irwin Center.
Fourteen thousand people we got, wegot a photo with him, I believe,
Yeah, we do, we do, yeah, you know. And
speaking of the Dalai Lama and talkingabout destruction or the dismantling of the Irwin

(08:58):
Center, one of the things thatcame to me is that several years ago
a group of Tibetan monks came tothe Black Museum and they created this sand
Mandela. I don't know if you'veever seen them, but there's these beautiful

(09:18):
art pieces that they spend a lotof time with this different color saying,
and they they make this beautiful artpiece, and I went for several days
to kind of watch the progress,and they finally finished it. And I

(09:39):
asked one of the people in charge, I go, okay, so now
they've done all this artwork, they'vedone this beautiful piece of artwork. What
happens to it now? And hesaid, well, they'll have a ceremony
to where they will all together theywould take this piece and they'll go down

(10:00):
the Waller Creek and they would throwit in the creek. And I went,
you've got to be kidding. Theysaid, no, say, the
whole this whole exercise is to demonstratethe permanence of all things interesting. And
that's kind of the way. That'skind of the way I'm seeing this now.
I was reminded of that, youknow, nothing less forever. Yeah,

(10:26):
you what I wish I had taken. I wish I had taken our
turnstile report. I wish I hadtaken Uh. There was a photograph on
our office wall of U two.Really it was Bono, and I wish

(10:48):
I had taken that. I didget one photograph, framed photograph of the
Irwin Center all lit up, andI have that good. I mean,
there's so many things that I wishI had taken copies of our applause,
our monthly publication that we put together. I do have photographs, some photographs,

(11:13):
so I feel good about that.I have one on me right on
the back of an elephant, letme know. So, you know,
just listening to John and Jimmy,you know, made me think a little
bit about the cool thing about workingat the Irwin Center was that, well,

(11:33):
there were so many cool things.But I think for me, what
I think about often is all ofthe people that worked there and for how
long And in fact, I don'tknow John, if you know this,
Jimmy may know this, but it'sa cute story about how we worked and

(11:58):
felt like family. It felt likefamily. So we had two marketing interns
that met on the job. Theywere both promoted to full time positions.
They started dating, Uh, theymoved on. One of them went to
law school in Wisconsin, so theother followed. They ended up getting married

(12:24):
and just a month or so agothey had a baby. Yeah, they
had they had a baby. Doyou know who I'm talking about? Yeah?
Do you job? Yeah? Facebeautiful story. Yeah, it's it's
cute, It's it's really cute.It lives on. It does live on.

(12:46):
How about you, Jimmy, ohmy, you know, being an
operations guy, you know I haveI like some of the obscure things like
I have a couple of chairs.I got row one seat one a twenty

(13:07):
two inches. I have the sprinklerhead from Lady Got Gay. It's a
good story. Sprinkler head from Lady. I remember the sprinkler scene in the
Prince concert I saw there. Thishas gotta be a better story. Tell

(13:28):
me this one. Well, thisis the kind of thing you never want
to have happen never, never,do you know the story? John?
Oh yeah, okay. So herewe go. So we're loading in Lady
Guy Guy, and it's going reallypretty well, and one of the stage

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hands is driving to fork lift andthey are distract acted by somebody talking to
them off of the forklift, andthey don't take their hand, their hand
off of the the knob that causesthe thing to rise up, the lift
to continue up, so they don'trealize how high it has gone, and

(14:18):
so when they turned the forklift,it's just high enough to clip off a
sprinkler head. It's had a floodeverything a flood, a major flood,
a major flood. It's just beforewrapping the concert, before doing the load
in. What do you guys do? Uh? Well, first thing I

(14:39):
did was pray you were calm.Jimmy was so calm. Well, you
know the thing, the thing yougot to figure out is first you got
to stop the water, and thenyou got to get the water up if
you can. It was it wasreally very h was this the rapper or
the water would all down, thefo all right down on the under the

(15:01):
stage, on the phone man,all the electrical work, to electrical audio
lights, everything, so thank goodness. You know, we had a Steve
Lawler, who's the uh the deanof production people in the professional entertainment industry.

(15:26):
It didn't freak out or anything.We just tried to figure out how
to get it. We called everywater restoration company probably within thirty miles,
and we just worked and worked andworked and had a few conversations with attorneys

(15:48):
and and I just said, youknow, we really don't have time for
this right now, but we're talkinga couple hours. And the show went
on. We've we've finally got itall. It was delayed somewhat. Yeah,
yeah, well I think we hadto hold the doors up thirty maybe
thirty minutes to an hour, Soit's a lot though. Yeah, it's

(16:10):
you know, that was pretty goodbecause people tend to think, oh,
it's the performer. Well the performermade it clear that it wasn't the performer.
Okay, so and he said thatwith a smile. So yeah,
she she, I know I'm talkingabout you. Oh yeah, yeah.
The so I have that. Ihave that sprinklehead at home as a paperweight.

(16:32):
And what it what it reminds meof is that you just don't ever
take anything for granted, true,and you have a backup plan right just
in case you don't. You don'thave a backup plan for that one.
Well, man, you just haveto do your best. But you know,
things happen and you know there's there'sno there's nothing you could do to

(16:55):
change that. So you just haveto just work wor could tell off to
try to make it right. Andthere was there was the chance to remain
that. You know, it hadto postpone the show, and that was
something that's a whole nother story.I know the center was special for for
listeners, concert goers, It hadto be special for the entertainers that showed
there was there any entertainer who wasso excited to finally play the Irwin Center

(17:18):
that you can think of. Well, I think in the beginning, you
know, everybody wants to play thenew venue. But it was a highlight
of Texas. Oh yeah, youknow, I mean it was. It
was something I think that whenever youget a new venue, everybody wants to
go to the new venue, rightand they want to see the new,

(17:38):
shiny new place and and play itand and those kinds of things, like
you're talking about the staff and theeverything about the building. People hear about
that, they talk about that,and they won't to experience that. So
well, back in the day,wasn't the Irwin Center like the cream of
the crop? It was? Itwas? Yeah, yeah, it was

(18:00):
one of the only venues outside ofmaybe up these Champagne and maybe a couple
other places that was a full servicefacility that did its own promotion, owned
ticketing, everything in house. Thatwas that was pretty rare for that time
period. Yeah, great place.Any thing strange with the writers, John,

(18:22):
if you got all the contracts,there has to be one entertainer who
you're going they really wanted this intheir rider. Well, what's funny is
that over the years, those writersand there's two parts of a contract,
as Jimmy and News would know,there's sort of page one and two,
which is here's the money, andhere's here's who gets the money, and
then the remaining seventy pages of thecookbook on putting on that event in whatever

(18:48):
city or whatever day of the weekthere did, so you got all the
catering and all those kind of things. One of the things that changed over
the years was used to be theyou coming to town and you would either
the venue had proved catering or youwould go to some restaurant in town.
They would bring the catering. Inthe last particularly in the big tours the
last few years, they bring theirown own kitchen with them so they have

(19:12):
the artist wants a certain kind ofconsistency as far as the food is concerned
in the show. And if youthink about it, they're like an army
and they travel on their stomach,so they need to have that kind of
assurance and continuity. So you wouldhave these large kitchens that would set up
in the Irwin Center the last probablyeight or nine years, where they would

(19:33):
prepare the meals on site, andthat was one of the things that changed
over the years. A great deal, but the only one that everybody ever
talks about. It seems to meit was the old Van Halen Rider about
the brown M and M. Well, let's just stop right there. We
got more memories, more great stories, memories. The Frank Urwin Center continues
part for next week. Thanks forlistening.