There was a time, four decades or so ago, when Tuscaloosa was a prominent stopping point for some of the major events of the day.
Birmingham had not yet built a new downtown civic center, and while Boutwell Auditorium was a great place for weekly wrestling, it wasn’t going to attract many musical superstars.
So for a large geographical area, essentially the entire stretch from Atlanta to New Orleans, the best venue for a show was Memorial Coliseum (as it was called then) on the University of Alabama campus.
The building played host to everyone from Bob Dylan to Bob Hope, from Elvis to Elton to the Rolling Stones.