The Sports Arena

• 310 Chester Avenue SE, Atlanta GA
  "Only 8,020 Feet East of State Capitol on Memorial Drive"
• Owners: L.C. "Pop" Warren created the venue in the 1930s; sold to Clyde Darby during WWII; in 1965 bought by wrestling promoter Paul Jones
• Capacity: 3600 

The Sports Arena was designed to host wrestling and boxing matches. It was also home to AAU "semipro" women's basketball team The Atlanta Blues. Musical events were interspersed, wherein the wrestling ring was adapted for performances. Early on, square dances were held several times a week, the main moneymaker of the time. Musical prodigy Brenda Lee performed there when she was just 9 years old. Elvis Presley played the Arena at age 20 on December 2, 1955, as his popularity was beginning to surge. Sports events at the venue were phasing out by the mid-1970s. In the mid-1980s the building was demolished. 

Photo by Steve Deal, staff photographer,
Atlanta Journal, October 28, 1983

"The Arena is a ramshackle building [without air-conditioning] long used for local wrestling, boxing, country music, and square dances. Inside, the atmosphere is one of wood and honest corruption, not steel, concrete, and hydraulic hype. Outside, the feeling is, well, like the industrial part of town, you know, warehouses, steel mesh fences, truck loading docks, cotton mill buildings, and even some plain red dirt road dear to the heart of a country boy."
--The Great Speckled Bird, Vol. 3, No. 5, February 2, 1970, article by Cliff Endres

1970

• Fleetwood Mac, Hampton Grease Band, Radar, River People - January 25
• The Kinks, Osmosis, Booger Band, Brick Wall (Kinks cancelled day before; replaced with Pacific Gas & Electric) - February 22
• Kenny Rogers & The First Edition, The Glass Menagerie - March 8
• Spirit, River People, Ruffin - March 22 (Spirit cancelled less than 24 hrs before show; Hampton Grease Band and What Brothers added)
• John Mayall, Hampton Grease Band, Chakra - April 5
• Johnny Winter, Radar, Georgia Power Kompany - April 12
• Canned Heat, The House - April 19 
• "Rock and Roll Marathon" - Hampton Grease Band, Radar, Stump Brothers, Axis, Perpetual Motion, Brick Wall, Georgia Power Kompany, What Brothers, Ruffin - April 26 (9 hour benefit for The Midtown Alliance and Community Center)
• Grateful Dead, Hampton Grease Band - May 10 (members of the Allman Brothers Band joined Grateful Dead for an extensive jam; The Dead had borrowed the ABB's equipment as theirs was stuck in Boston)

1971

• Captain Beefheart, Ry Cooder, Booger Band - February 4
• Quicksilver Messenger Service, Brewer & Shipley - March 21
• Spirit, Trapeze, Radar - April 18
• John Mayall, Stonehenge, Randals Island - May 9
• Goose Creek Symphony, Chakra - May 23
• Steve Miller Band - June 10
• Buddy Miles and the Buddy Miles Express, Sugarloaf, Florida's Fabulous Tropics - June 20
• BB King, East Side Blues Band - June 27
• Chuck Berry, Ted Nugent & The Amboy Dukes, Sunday Funnies - October 17
• Fanny, Hydra, Orpheum Circuit, Phat Max - November 14
• The Guess Who, Peace Corps - December 2

1972

• John McLaughlin & The Mahavishnu Orchestra, Hampton Grease Band - May 7
• Edgar Winter, Groundhogs, Eric Quincy Tate - June 11
• Procol Harum, Eagles, Radar - July 13*
• Uriah Heep, John Baldry, White Trash - July 19
• The Byrds, Eric Anderson, New Riders of the Purple Sage - August 2
• T. Rex - August 21
• J. Geils Band - September 1
• Cheech & Chong, Hampton Grease Band - September 28
• John Mayall, Delbert & Glen - November 5

1973

• Mom's Apple Pie, Silverman, Joy - January 28
• Trapeze, Hydra - May 24
• Marshall Tucker Band, Wet Willie, Mose Jones, Eric Quincy Tate, Greg Scott & Eddie Terrill Band - July 1 (benefit for C.A.R.E.)
• Joe Walsh - August 19
• Fleetwood Mac, Jambalaya, Dixie Grease - November 4

*Conflicting tour databases put Procol Harum and Eagles at both Atlanta's Sports Arena and The Warehouse in New Orleans July 14, 1972. Eagles opened several times for Procol Harum on their 1972 tour, promoting the May 1972 release of their debut single "Take it Easy." A couple of online accounts of Sports Arena attendees place both bands in Atlanta on July 14. Promoter Howard Stein advertised only the July 13 concert in The Great Speckled Bird's July 10 and 17, 1972 issues. I will stick with the 13th as evidenced in the display ads. Joe Roman's definitive concert review in the July 24, 1972 issue of The Bird also nails the event to Thursday the 13th.

Sources:

"Arena of Memories," by Sam Heys, staff writer, Atlanta Journal, October 28, 1983

www.thestripproject.com/the-sports-arena

Just for Fun: the Story of AAU Women's Basketball, by Robert W. Ikard, published by The University of Arkansas Press, 2005