Look Back At The Cape Cod Coliseum
Like a hurricane, The Cape Cod Coliseum shook; It was big, it ranged within multiple categories. Like the eye of a storm, the peak of the Cape Cod Coliseum blew over. What remains now is left only in the reminiscences of both structural and mental concepts.
Located on a long stretched road running alongside Route 6, the once jetting out words, boldly printed in a crimson hue, now lay flesh with the building's surface. All that remains is a faded memorial to the words “Cape Cod Coliseum”, as if they are fossilized into the side of the building by dirt, debris and sunbleached. The building that once hoarded hockey players and fans, children and circus acts, magnitudes of bands and the hair growth of the seventies and eighties decades, now corral the nautical themes and home decor of a retail merchandiser’s storage supplies. However, decades later, like the original marquee the building once bore, the memories of the Coliseum are still preserved in the minds and hearts of those who remember it at its best. Here is a look back at The Cape Cod Coliseum.
The area was ideal. Yarmouth is located in the MidCape region, right off the highway, making it accessible to every town on this Massachusetts peninsula. During this time the cape had only one other promising entertainment center, The Cape Cod Melody Tent, located in Hyannis. Hyannis promised a more upper-class society, not quite Chatham, but it was home of The Kennedy Compound. Nothing like the blue-collar town that Yarmouth represented. The Melody Tent, for that reason, remained at a humble, reasonable size, allowing Yarmouth’s new venue to gather an attraction of bigger groups and audiences. A size of 46,000 Square Feet, roughly 6,500 people.
Bought by real estate agent, William Harrison and managed by Richard ‘Bud’ Terrio, the Coliseum opened its doors in September 1972, after a $1.5 million investment. The first events taking place being a New England favorite sport; Hockey. 27 September of the opening year the Boston Braves and Rhode Island Reds of the American Hockey League, hit the frozen center of the Cape Cod Coliseum. For the first season, the venue made most of its profit by encouraging youth hockey leagues to rent the arena for practices and games. The indoor rink became a refuge for the Cape Cod Cubs, a youth hockey team sponsored and founded by Bud Terrio.
By Spring 1973 the poorly amplified, as well as vented (“No AC, but better yet, no venting either! Hot.” says John Lavelle, a frequent visitor of the Coliseum during its hey-day) building, brought music to the rafters. Removing the ice, transforming the arena into an auditorium allowed for the venue's first concert; The Boston Pops, April 1973. The Pops were just the beginning, as the Coliseum began to house bands of a more wilder circuit; Rock’n’Roll. Within the coming years performances of local bands such as The J Geils Band, played there ten times. Aerosmith, took the stage five. Bands such as Kiss, Foreigner, Styx, Van Halen, The Grateful Dead, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, and more, all flew and bused up to this quaint, beach town.
“(I) Went to see Black Sabbath but was totally blown away by the opening act; a new band called Van Halen. Hot and smokey. Like being in a tin can. 1975? My date passed out. I drove his station wagon home going 90mph. I had never been behind the wheel when I was 14.” remembered Jody Moore via an online interview.
Another adolescent at the time, Janice McGonagle, remembers,
“We were driving home one night, I remember my dad being in the front, and we couldn’t get down White’s Path. Cars and people were blocking the streets on both sides. I had never seen anything like it! So, dad pulled over and asked, ‘Who’s playing?’ and a kid a few years older than me at the time said, ‘The J. Geils Bands playing!’. That was my first taste of the J. Geils Band and rock and roll.”
Both Moore and McGonagle represent what the coliseum was about. It was beyond an unventilated, concrete floor to wall building, but rather a segway into their newly formed, or coming to age identities.
Though the concerts continued to grow, and wildly become the scene for tailgating and Cape Cod attraction, the first dream of the venue died. Hockey at the coliseum no longer would exist after the Cubs began to struggle with keeping fans in stands, the NorthEastern Hockey League moving out of South Yarmouth and into Manchester, New Hampshire, leading to the Coliseum being put up for sale and Harrison bankrupt. By 1982, Hockey had left the Coliseum for good.
The venue would see two new owners, Ed Fruean, who continued to market on the popularity of the youth scene by inviting new and beloved bands to the town and new owner again to Vince McMahon, chairman and CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). McMahon stepped in due to Frucan’s lack of investment or ability to promote the Coliseum during the off wintering off seasons. With McMahon’s contacts and visions, WWE began headlining on the Mid Cape. With it brought the likes of none other than Hulk Hogan and Andre The Giant. In 1984, WWE continued to grow and so did McMahon’s career, taking him off of the Cape and expanding into a much broader audience. The final Coliseum event took place on 4 June, 1984, a wrestling match which closed the doors to entertainment on the Mid-Cape.
The building was sold to Christmas Tree Shops corporation who use it now as a warehouse. Today as it stands, filled with boxed up packages of retail merchandise , it is fondly looked back as a package that money can’t buy.
Citations;
Cai. “The Cape Cod Coliseum Brought Rock Royalty to South Yarmouth.” CAI, 16 July 2018, www.capeandislands.org/in-this-place/2018-07-16/the-cape-cod-coliseum-brought-rock-royalty-to-south-yarmouth.
“The Cape Cod Coliseum: All You Need To Know.” CapeCod.com, 17 Mar. 2021, www.capecod.com/lifestyle/the-cape-cod-coliseum-all-you-need-to-know/.
Coye, Lindsey, et al. “Cape Cod Coliseum .” 24 Mar. 2021.
“Remembering the Cape Cod Coliseum.” Kinlin Grover Real Estate, www.kinlingrover.com/blog/remembering-the-cape-cod-coliseum/.
