Superdome memories.
I have been going to the dome since I was 3 years old. My earliest memory is seeing the Jazz play on the floor. By see, I mean squinting at the tiny ants on the court while sitting in the terrace. I have gone to countless events at the dome over the years. The World of Wheels, the New Orleans Pelicans, and even the demolition derbies in the mid seventies were some of the more exotic events I saw there.
I remember Ray Guy from the Raiders hit the gondola with a punt years before they raised it up. Tulane used to play L.S.U. every year for the season finale. I have never heard a louder sound than being in a sold out dome for one for those games. There were always more fans from Baton Rouge than Tulane supporters, but it didn’t matter. The trip to the souvenier shop to get the giant foam finger eased the pain of seeing L.S.U. kick the shit out of your home team.
I hope to christ they didn’t change the carpet in the tunnels leading to the higher levels. This stuff was strait out of Mike Brady’s architectual design manual. I think they put those crazy designs down so if the drunkies puked on it, it wouldn’t show as much. I remember how my brother and I would leave our seats while the lobby was empty and roll down the tunnels until the security guys would run us off. “Nice blazer dill weed!” we shouted. just kidding, those security guys didn’t give a shit if you ran around naked with nunchucks in your hand. I cringe now knowing I rolled around on a surface that thousands of dirty shoes, cigatette butts, and drunkies puked on combined together in a toxic bath. It may have caused every cold I ever had as a child. I think I got chicken pocks from that carpet.
Right after High School , in 1990, my friends and I went to the Busch Challenge. It was a baseball tournament between L.S.U., Tulane, and U.N.O. from Louisiana against three colleges from another state, usually Florida or Mississippi, or whomever was invited that year. My friend had been in the dome only once in his 18 years on Earth. He goes to the mens room and returns with a look of confusion on his face. He asked me, “Why did they put mirrors in front of you when you go to pee?” What?” When I was peeing I was looking right in the mirror at myself, thats kind of wierd.” I said, “You pissed in the f-ing sink you idiot”! Come on now, how many of you have done that?Those giant round sinks are the stuff of legend. I have a thousand stories of things going on in the bathrooms in the dome.
I can keep going on, but I won’t bore you any longer. Just thought I would let everybody chime in about their DOME memories.
The End
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WHO DAT!!!
I have never been in the Dome. I was hoping to see Tulane host SMU (my alma mater), but my job will prevent it. I had been hoping to get Saints season tickets this year, but, um… the money went for things like mortgage, Entergy bills and other needed stuff.
That said — I have been a Saints fan since their inception. Somewhere in a box are my little black and white pics of when the upstart Saints came to play the Cowboys at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas (long before the days of Texas Stadium). The pics (again — tiny ants taken from long distance) are of Doug Atkins (the Chicago Bears great who wound up his career in a Saints uniform) and Jim Taylor (same story from the Packers). I might have been the only kid in Dallas with a Billy Kilmer poster on his wall (in a Saints uniform).
I might be a relative newcomer to New Orleans, but not to the Saints. Who dat, y’all?
I moved to New Orleans from Boston when I was 7, and there were two sports I liked: hockey, and baseball. New Orleans in the 70’s, though, was all football, football, football, all the fucking time. I fucking hated football. And we had moved from the second worst franchise (the Patriots) to the worst.
I went to one Saints game at Tulane Stadium and one at the Dome, both times with friends families since my parents were not the sports-ticket-buying type.
My real memories at the dome are musical and Carnival memories. 2nd Annual Day of Rock and Roll in the Dome (Cheap Trick, Foreigner, and the Eagles). 3rd Annual Day of Rock and Roll in the Dome (Heart, Foghat, and who knows who else.) The Rolling Stones. The best part about the Dome was that they never checked ids so you could be 16 and drink strawberry daquiris all day long.
The first time I was in the Superdome was for my very first Saints game back in the 70’s when Archie Manning was QB. My Dad managed to get tickets which were in the nosebleed section. However the place was so sparse with fans that an usher asked my Dad if we’d like to sit in a better section. Dad said “yes” so the usher escorted us down to seats that were around the 40 yard line only a few rows up from the field. Great seats that would have cost Dad a lot more money. The Saints lost of course (against the Cardinals [pre-Arizona days] if memory serves me correctly) and every time Archie Manning’s face appeared up on the jumbo screen above mid-field for car ads, the hometown fans booed him something awful. Over subsequent years, my Dad took my brother and myself to many Saints games. One year Dad and I went to a national numismatic (coin collector) show that was held in the Superdome. And one year my Dad got me a ticket to a concert super-event called (I think) “the Super Bowl of Rock and Roll.” The headline act was KISS, but I couldn’t care less to see them. It was many of the groups that preceded KISS that I wanted to see: Heart, Blue Oyster Cult and a couple of others. The whole shebang started around mid-morning and lasted until KISS finished which was scheduled for midnight, but in reality (with all the extra time needed for setups and encores of all the earlier groups) wasn’t until about 3am or so according to news reports that Sunday. However I had a great time and managed to last several hours before taking a cab back to the hotel.
Wow!!
You remember the “Pelicans”!
Laurie
The Rolling Stones performed at the Dome in the early 80’s at what was billed as the largest indoor concert in history.
it was the opening of the World’s Fair (84?) they had a 3 mile race that started in the Superdome and worked it’s way threw the CBD and was to end up at the Fair. here’s the rub: the front runners were not from New Orleans, and they didn’t have enought NOPD around to direct the runners - they got lost.
i’ve been running most of my life - never have i been in a race where we lost direction. what should have taken us 20 min. took us an hour! :/
I have fond memories of the 1984 World’s Fair in New Orleans. I went several times while it was going on.
Me too that’s were I let my husband know I wanted him!
Where did they throw the CBD to?
Now, I’m confuzzled.
Laurie
I remember the Pelicans, but not the old Pelicans. The team came back to New Orleans for a year or two in the late seventies.
The only time I have ever been IN the Superdome was to see Neville High School whip up on somebody in the early 80s. We stayed at the Hyatt and thought the glass elevators were the best! :-P Hey - I was 12! My mother worked three jobs to afford that trip and we all knew it - so everytime I see the ‘dome I think of my Mama. and Neville.
Geaux Saints!
the circus! working the superbowl game when it was down here in 2001.
I have three early memories of the Dome:
My first trip was for a Yankee’s - Orioles pre season baseball game. Ron Guidry pitched. I was 10. The friend I went with and I enjoyed running around the dome’s “tunnels” more than the game.
Second trip was for a LSU-Tulane football game. Greenies 49, LSU 7 I think. I and other LSU fans were not amused.
Third was for a Prince concert in 84? I think. Purple Rain was the big deal and I was in High school. We left early and went and saw Rodney Dangerfield live at the Orpheum. Mr. no Respect was better than the purple one, trust me.
I heard the Purple One rocked that concert - we were so jealous our cousin who lived in NO got to go, but we, who had a mother teaching at Carroll in Monroe where he played a FREE concert for the school, could not enjoy his unique interpretations of family entertainment.
oh - and my brother was a freshman at Neville and WON tickets to the Monroe concert, which he GAVE AWAY.
Still bitter. ;-)
A.
Let it geaux Ms. Oakley.
Laurie
Oh that is only a tiny, insignificant sock packed inside the baggage I carry around! ;-)
A.