Music and film edit
Elvis Presley performed 4 sold out concerts at the Nassau Coliseum on June 22, 23 & 24, 1973. His last Coliseum appearance was on July 19, 1975. Six days following Presley's death, a summer tour was scheduled to begin at the Coliseum on August 22, 1977. Tickets for the show have become collectors items. David Bowie performed a radio broadcast from there during his 1976 Isolar Tour, in support of the album Station to Station. A heavily circulated bootleg of the concert saw official release in 2010 as part of the Station to Station Deluxe Box Set. Queen played at the Coliseum in February 1977 during their headlining US tour. The band used footage of their performance of "Tie Your Mother Down" in the song's promotional film.[1]
Led Zeppelin played three nights at the Nassau Coliseum on their 1975 North American Tour. During the second night, February 13, Ronnie Wood of the Faces and The Rolling Stones joined the band for a rousing rendition of "Communication Breakdown." High quality soundboard recordings of the band's performances on February 13 and 14 have surfaced on bootlegs.
The Coliseum was one of only two venues in the United States where Pink Floyd mounted their limited run of shows for The Wall Tour. The group performed five concerts from February 24 through 28, 1980 one of which was filmed and only appeared as an underground tape. In August 1988, they recorded and filmed the Delicate Sound of Thunder over four nights at the Coliseum. They first played the venue in June, 1975 on their Wish You Were Here Tour.
Live on Long Island 04-18-80 by The Marshall Tucker Band was the original lineup's final concert and the final recording of bassist and founding member Tommy Caldwell, who died just ten days later in an automobile accident. Tommy Caldwell is pictured on the album cover. The Coliseum album was the first to feature a complete concert from the original band. However, the album wasn't released until 26 years later. The band was touring in support of their album Tenth at the time, and the recording features the songs "It Takes Time" and "Cattle Drive" from that release as well as classics such as "Heard It in a Love Song", "Searchin' for a Rainbow" and "Can't You See".
Billy Joel has a "retired number" banner hanging from the rafters, along with those of Islander greats, to commemorate his many sold-out Coliseum shows. His "retired number" is 69. One of Joel's concerts from his 1982 tour at the Coliseum was recorded for a 1983 HBO concert special and VHS release, Billy Joel: Live From Long Island.[2]
Bruce Springsteen has performed at the arena numerous times, most notably during a three-night stand in December 1980. A number of songs from these shows were part of his 1986 live album, Live/1975–85, and the show of December 31 was released in full as Nassau Coliseum, New York 1980 in 2015.
Supertramp performed at the Coliseum on their final tour with Roger Hodgson in 1983 in support of their ...Famous Last Words... album. The 1986 live album Finyl Vinyl by Rainbow features a rendition of the song "Can't Happen Here" which was recorded at Nassau Coliseum in 1981. The 1987 home video Cliff 'Em All features a rendition of the song "Master of Puppets" by Metallica, filmed at Nassau Coliseum on April 28, 1986 (while the band was opening a show for Ozzy Osbourne).
Both The Grateful Dead and Phish frequently played the Coliseum, concerts yielding live albums in both cases: Go to Nassau by the Dead; and three installments of the Live Phish Series — 4-2-98, 4-3-98 and 2-28-03. Genesis' performance at the Coliseum on November 29, 1981 (during the band's Abacab Tour) was recorded and filmed for the band's Three Sides Live album and concert video plus radio broadcast. Frank Zappa played his final U.S. show on March 25, 1988[3] at the Coliseum. He was joined onstage by his son, Dweezil Zappa, for the concert's encores. Pink Floyd performed between August 19 and 23, 1988, on their A Momentary Lapse of Reason Tour. In March 1990, the country supergroup The Highwaymen performed at the Coliseum. Their performance was recorded and was released on VHS in 1991. On June 11, 12 and 13, 1990, Madonna performed three sold-out shows at Nassau Coliseum on her Blond Ambition World Tour. The inside sleeve to Morrissey's 1992 album Your Arsenal was shot at a performance at the Coliseum on November 11, 1991.
Post 2000, scenes for the 2007 movie Music and Lyrics starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore were filmed at the arena. On February 6 and 7, 2008, The Spice Girls performed two sold-out shows during their Return of the Spice Girls Tour. It was their first performance in the New York metropolitan area as a five-piece act. In 2012, Madonna used the arena to rehearse her MDNA World Tour.[citation needed] On July 19–20, 2014, the Global RallyCross Championship raced at the Nassau Coliseum parking lot.
- ^ 1977 A Day At The Races North American Tour Ultimate Queen. Retrieved August 31, 2011
- ^ IMDB Entry for Billy Joel Live from Long Island
- ^ "Frank Zappa Gig List: 1988".