If walls could talk the Newport Music Hall’s would tell quite a tale, but not without denting the reputations of some big names in the music industry. As “The Nation’s Longest Continually Running Rock Club,” the Newport has brought history to its location at 1722 N. High St. dating back to 1922 and has made a lasting impact on rock ‘n’ roll.
“Every person in the concert business has been in that building at least once in their career-from managers, to agents, to musicians,” said Scott Stienecker, president of PromoWest Productions Inc., the concert promoter of the Newport.
Built in 1922, the Newport began as the State Theater, a movie house, until 1970 when it was bought by Hank Loconti who made it the Agora Ballroom, part of a nationally renowned chain of 12 night clubs. The Agora began as a private membership dance club for college students but opened the doors to its first live rock ‘n’ roll concert with national artist, Ted Nugent on May 20, 1970. Tickets sold for $3.50.
The Agora became a landmark with artists ranging from Huey Lewis and the News, Queen, Alice Cooper, Bruce Springstein and the Grateful Dead.
“Every Wednesday it was ‘Welfare Wednesday’ and people could pay $2 at the door to drink free beer all night and listen to live music,” Loconti said.
The Agora earned quick popularity and respect. Those who remember the Agora look back on it with fond memories.
“I used to walk by the Agora worrying about exams,” Richard Lewis, comedian and OSU alumni said. “I’m pretty sure it had a lot to do with my cumulative grade point average. Why study when you can go to the Agora and hear rock ‘n’ roll?”
Loconti is proud of the respect his concert hall gained and said he remembers when students were rioting and running down High Street breaking windows.
“They never touched the Agora,” Loconti said.
In the early ’80s Loconti experienced a brief illness. With 12 clubs throughout the U.S. to run, Loconti put the Agora on the market.
“I cut a deal with Hank Loconti, the owner, in 1983 to lease the building right before he almost turned it over to become a drugstore,” Stienecker said. “Loconti wanted me to change the name so I called it the New Port, as in the new port for rock ‘n’ roll, which has evolved over the years to the Newport.”
After some renovations, Stienecker reopened the concert hall’s doors as the Newport on Sept. 10, 1984 with Neil Young.
“Not only was it Neil Young,” Loconti said. “Seeing the place reopened was like seeing an old friend just out of rehab.”
Stienecker has achieved his dream of running a rock ‘n’ roll club and has made many memories over the past 18 years.
“I’ve come across memorable situations with different artists a lot in my career,” Stienecker said. “One band requested in their rider for cat food. I thought that it was really weird but we got it for them. It turned out that they spread it on crackers and told the groupies to try the paté.”
Stienecker said while some artists make funny requests, others don’t need much of anything at all before performing.
“The greatest blues artist of all time, Albert Collins, was past due his time to be on stage so I went out to find him and he was underneath the tour truck fixing it. I said to him, ‘You are supposed to be on stage right now,’ and he just got up and walked straight onstage and started performing. The grease from the engine was still on his hands.”
Stienecker said at times catering to the rock ‘n’ roll bands that the Newport’s clients pay to see can be trying. For example, the band Green Day made a ritual of trashing the dressing room before making an appearance on stage.
“They trashed the place,” Stienecker said. “I went and knocked on the door to see what was going on and they threw a full beer can right through the door. It barely missed my head. Then they ran onstage and began hockering all over the audience.”
A rowdy talent can mean an even rowdier audience, according to a past security guard and bar manager at the Newport for eight years, Jeff “Gator” Thornhill. The nickname “Gator” was acquired at the Newport because it was Thornhill’s job to watch over the ‘gator pit,’ the area between the crowd, the stage, and backstage.
“People would actually jump from the balcony and try to make it on stage,” Thornhill said. “They always got hurt.”
Thornhill has witnessed: Courtney Love jumping off the stage and into the crowd, a lead singer beating a hole in the floor with a microphone stand and just about anything you can imagine from concert-goers seeking to go backstage.
“I look back on it now and I wish I had kept a diary,” Thornhill said. “I could have wrote a book.”
Thornhill believes the Newport is a music hall that will go down in the history of rock music.
“There are those certain places that bands have to play in order to make it big,” Thornhill said. “There is the Rainbow Bar and Grill in L.A., CBGB’s in New York City, and I think the Newport is one of them right here in Columbus.”
Thornhill said that the appeal about the Newport is the intimate setting it creates between the audience and the performer. Brett Mayo, the drummer from the band “The Toll,” a local band from Columbus that made it big, knows firsthand what it is like for performers at the Newport.
“We lost power while playing one night and we ended up doing an entire acoustic set with flashlights,” Mayo said. “The crowd loved it and it was the little impromptu things that added to the mystique of the building.”
“The Toll” was described as “U2 meets the Doors” and played at the Newport many times, even renting it out to showcase their talent in a private concert for producers from New York City and L.A.
“We traveled all over the world but we would always stop at the Newport as a homecoming,” Mayo said. “It had such great history to it because you knew all the bands that had come before you.”
Mayo said it is the history that gives the Newport its character.
“It is an old theater and they didn’t change it much, so it still has that essence,” Mayo said. “It isn’t air-conditioned and bands used to say they didn’t like playing there in the summer because it was 110 degrees on stage and water would just be pouring out of you. It was really hot but putting air-conditioning in there would take away from that historical essence.”
Stienecker books acts at the Newport who can utilize its special charm to get their career headed in the right direction-the acts on their way up and the ones on their way down.
“Alice Cooper played here at least three times before he got out of the station wagon and got a name,” Loconti said.
Rock ‘n’ roll artists may aspire to new heights after their performances at the Newport but the impression that it has made on their careers will be there as long as it stands.
“I love this place and I always think that if the world ends this place will still be here,” said singer and frequent performer at the Newport, Joe Walsh. “I hate when you come back and it is all condemned. If I had my chance I’d be sitting up in the balcony.”
