Granada Theater w Pegasonics Ticket 12.10.1980
Parousia had the honor of opening up for Pegasonics at the “This Is Buffalo” music event at the Granada Theater on Main Street, sponsored by WZIR radio, in December of 1980. I recall the “This Is Buffalo” thing at the Granada went on for a few days featuring many local Buffalo bands, culminating in a show where Pegasonics, a re-engineered Pegasus, unveiled their new concept album “New New York” (which is awesome, by the way, I still have mine).
This is a particularly fond memory for me, as it really was an historical moment. Pegasus became Pegasonics, a Buffalo band’s local independent album was released with a fanfare not seen before (and probably not since), and we got to play in the acoustically superior, history laden Granada theater, shortly before it’s demise.
It was especially cool for me as, being at Main and Winspear, that was my neighborhood and maybe a mile from where I lived for a good portion of my life. It feels really good to get up on a big theater stage in front of hundreds of attentive people, surrounded by friends, right in the neighborhood you grew up in.
Gerry offers some thoughts on this show and the images below:
Cool facts about the Granada Theater:
This very large elegant movie theater in northeast Buffalo, NY opened in 1941. It was operated by the Schine Circuit for many years.It was special place for us in our time. The Granada Theater was the only theater in Buffalo to feature “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” on a regular basis for many years. It was a grand event… people from all over Western NY and Canada would come dressed as their favorite character from the movie. During the course of the show, people would imitate scenes and dance on stage to match the actors on the screen, or throw baloney (Meatloaf again!), spray water bottles to simulate rain, etc… It was a great place at a great time to have fun.
Sadly, after its closing, the auditorium was eventually torn down and a gas station now stands in its place. Oddly enough, the facade and lobby were salvaged and used as a pizzeria. (see photo).
Regarding the “Rockers” Print Advertisement below dated February 1980…
In December of 1979 Parousia had just replaced Keyboardist Dave Maltbie with Eric Scheda. We were very busy in Keith Gregor’s Music Mall rehearsing our material and getting ready for future gigs. At the same time, we released several print-ads, published in “Rockers” magazine.
The ad from February of 1980 pictured here, reveals a new twist on the old Parousia logo and is one of my personal favorites. The front cover features Chuck Cavanaugh, Steve Trecaise and Mark Freeland from the prog-rock group “Pegasonics”, (f.k.a: Pegasus).
Pegasonics was ready to release their new concept album “The New New York” to an eager Western NY audience. Their premier performance to take place at the treasured Granada Theater in December of 1980 with Parousia opening the show.
(Remind me to tell my “Steve Trecaise was too stoned” story from that evening.)
The “New New York” inspired the release of more of the bands independent efforts, such as Steve’s “Trelaine productions” and his song, “I’m With You” and the birth of Mark Freeland’s Electroman and his first vinyl single release, “Let’s Stay Up and Party ‘till Six In the Morning” which became a local favorite.
Granada Theater w Pegasonics Flyer 12.10.1980
Kneeling: Garth Huels, Kim Watts and Eric Scheda. Standing: Barry Cannizzaro, Robert Lowden, Patrick Connolly and Gerry Cannizzaro of Parousia.
New New York Article – New Beat Magazine June 1980
February 1980 Rockers Magazine featuring Pegasonics on the cover, and the Parousia Ad from that issue..
Recent picture of the Granada facade… used for a Pizzeria
Granada Theater – A Historic Landmark closed. Courtesy of American Classic Images
Wow, I can’t remember too much about this Granada Theater gig like my brother “Jerry North” (giggidy) or Garth does, I was just too damn stooooooned! Naw, I’m just “mucking” with ‘ya players! I ain’t no Jim Morrison “head” druggie type. I’m just having a hell of a lot of “senior moments” these days. Yeah, “the ‘ole gray Bare ain’t what he used to be! I’m only saying. Even though I can’t remember any details about our band Parousia playing this night, I can remember that Pegasonics (Pegasus) put on one hell of a show at the Granada. Not only with their debut of the “New New York” show but before that, I remember they performed together as a Genesis ‘tribute band’ that was finely tuned to perfection. Under the name Pegasus they performed the “Lamb Lies down on Broadway” album from start to finish at McVans. Mark Freeland was a real showman; equipped with Peter Gabriel costumes and outfits galore.
The Granada theater had that very rustic and classic feel to it, much like the old Century Theater had. I think I saw an animated adventure superhero type movie there that had the Black Sabbath song: “The Mob Rules” in it; although I can’t remember the name of that flick. Does anyone have any ideas on this movie’s name? Possibly “Heavy Metal”? Yeah, that senior moment just hit me again. Anyway, it was at this venue that Pegasonics performed their “The New New York” rock opera that rocked the house and we were fortunate enough to be right there on stage opening the show for them. Too bad the ‘ole Granada is now just a store front for “Just Pizza”! Are you kiddin’ me? Man, all ‘dem damn ghosts from that theater must be pissed-off something terrible. Well, that’s all I know about this very special gig, dogs! So just keep on rockin’, and stay away from those mind destroying chemicals or worse yet, Sicilian pizza with extra anchovies on it cursed by the evil spirits of the now defunct Granada theater. Wooo, ah woooowie, that “joint” will kill a few brain cells my dudes, no lie!
Peace out!
Barry Da Dimwitt waz here
This is a special story that’s near to my heart. If you read my comments for Parousia’s July 1st 1979 show at McVans you know how much respect we had for Pegasus/ Pegasonics and how we admired them. Mark Freeland (front-man), Kent Weber (bass), Chuck Cavanaugh (drums), Vince Cooper (guitar) and Steve Trecaise (keyboards)… yeah, we were stoked to open for them and have the opportunity to share a theater stage together.
The theming and musicianship that went into creating the stage presentation for “the New New York” concept album was greatly anticipated by fans. We knew that the expectations from this evening’s audience were set to ‘11’ which made us all a little nervous but backstage, we found creative ways to deal with it.
Parousia had a new show-set of our own to unleash on the audience this evening, but as the opening act we had to strategically place the equipment, props and ourselves in front of all the Pegasonics gear. This was no small feat, but as usual we figured out a creative way to do it and make it look good.
Eric Scheda and I had just finished sound check and were standing in front of the stage by the keyboards. The keyboards for both Eric and Steve were very similar to each other and were arraged in the same spot on the stage. Both had a Moog synthesizer sitting on top of a Hammond B3 organ with rotating Leslie speakers. Eric had a Fender Rhodes piano but Steve had a Mellotron.
From a smoke filled room backstage, out walks Steve Trecaise… You can smell the cannabis wafting around him as he approached (and it was the good stuff). He walked up to Eric’s keyboards thinking it was his gear… he paused for a moment then his eyes opened wide like two saucers and then he gripped the side of his head with both hands looking scared shit-less. We could hear him cry out “What the F**k! No, No, NO!” He started fingering the keys, adjusting the knobs and sliders trying to figure out why his keyboards were different… why was his Mini Moog now a Sonic Six..? Where was his Mellotron and where did this Fender Rhodes come from?? He was trying not to lose it especially now, the last few critical moments before the big show. Steve kept starring at the keyboards desperately trying to figure out what happened. It looked like he might possibly have a nervous break down… Although Eric and I were having a good laugh at this we just couldn’t stand to see the guy suffer anymore and so Eric finally said, “Hey Steve, those aren’t your keyboards, your set up is over here.” Of course Steve was relived to hear that and we watched his expression quickly change from “what the f…” to “yeah, cool”. Eric and I walked back stage snickering a bit over that one.
In spite of all the drama, this night was a big success for both Parousia and Pegasonics. Special thanks to John McGovern and Rick Diesing for helping us with stage set up and sound engineering.
This webpost is wrong – yes, there is a gas station on the corner, but the Granada auditorium was behind the gas station on Winspear where the parking lot is.
What really helped to kill this theater was lack of adequate parking. Basically, it had no lot at all, leaving patrons to ferret out street spots in a area with popular restaurants. It’s proximity to the State University of New York at Buffalo helped to keep it running while it’s nearest competition, the Amherst, had tons of parking in a shopping mall and was only about a half mile away. Another nail in the coffin was when the University of NY at Buffalo Student Union decided to convert a lecture hall in their building into a 35MM theater. The students no longer had a reason to go the Granada on a regular basis.
I inspected and ran films at the Granada Theater for many years — which involved encountering things not normally associated with your average projectionist work:
Frequently they would somehow exhume prints that hadn’t been run in decades (like Moby Dick) that would barely make it through one or two showings (it’s fun to watch the film outside the sprockets peel off in long strips while it’s running!). The machines were old and would periodically break down. It’s very difficult and borderline dangerous to tell a hallway full of stoned kids that they can’t see “Gimmie Shelter” due to technical problems (I ran an entire day on one machine, bringing up house lights every 20 minutes to change reels — pre platter days — now it’s pre digital download days — OH MY!) …. and YES, the arc housing got REALLY hot!!!
Then there was the infamous run of ‘2001’ – a favorite of the stoners. A popular audience thing was to lay on the stage with their feet up against the screen and trip out during the light show portion — one showing a guy appeared at the booth door claiming that the film was taking the wrong direction, but if he could get at the projector he could correct the course and save everybody. They carried him out of the building screaming and ranting……… I won’t say everyone was under the influence, but I think you could walk up the light beam from the screen to the booth!
Yet this was not as bad as the day the Black Student Union invaded the theater during a screening, jumping on stage and announcing that ‘2001’ was a racist film and they were shutting it down — and that’s exactly what they did by ripping down the screen, kicking in the speakers, charging the booth and ripping the 2 reels of film out of the machines and stealing them. Luckily they didn’t kick over the arc machines. Upon learing that MGM was taking legal action to get the film back, they decided it wasn’t that racist after all and returned them.
AH, THE GOOD OLD DAYS……..
But I digress —–
The Amherst Theater survived by dividing itself into 3 theaters – the Granada was not so fortunate (if one can call such survival tactics ‘fortunate’) and eventually went x-rated before the wrecking ball finally arrived. From it’s extremely small entrance on Main St., I’m sure many people never knew of the fantastic interior and superior management and projection of that 60’s-70’s period
The Granada was in the University Heights district of Buffalo. I lived in the neighboring community of Eggertsville so I saw movies here and at The Amherst as a child. Granada would sometimes play classic old movie matinees in the 70s like King Kong that us kids would go to. Later I remember as a teenager walking down Main street to the Granada for my first ever viewing of Rocky Horror in 1981. I think they finally demolished it a couple years later.
My dad, Earl L. Hubbard Jr, managed the Granada Theater in Buffalo, N.Y. in the early 1960’s and into early 1970’s. It was a marvelous theater with all the perks, wall to wall carpeting, padded seats, chandeliers and drapes that hung over the screen that opened and closed. The picture screen went wall to wall! It was a time when the movies were a big deal when the stars actually went to grand openings at theaters. I remember seeing Annette Funicello, Ed Wynn and Tommy Sands at the premier of “Babes in Toyland” and Todd Armstrong at the opening of “Jason and the Argonauts”. Thanks for the memories Granada Theater and dad, Earl L. Hubbard, Jr. from daughter Diana.
I remember seeing these guys open up for Pegasonics (aka Pegasus) at the old Granada Theater when they did the big New New York show. Pegasus + Parousia = one hell of a show!
Was fortunate to be at the WORLD Premiere of “Exodus”. Met the two stars after the show!
I was 9 years old. Being a kid, I could only say, “You look much prettier in person.”
Looking back, WOW was that lame!
She was attractive❣️