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NEW YORK (AP) - CBGB hosted its final concert Sunday night after a 33-year residence in downtown New York as the iconic, grungy bastion of punk. The concert, headlined by rock poet Patti Smith, was to be the final note sounded in a drawn-out battle to preserve the legendary club.
A homeless advocacy group that owns the property, the Bowery Residents Committee, is not renewing CBGB's lease, which expired in August 2005. The club will close Oct. 31.
Smith led a raucous show intended not as a funeral, but a celebration of the "CBGB's spirit," urging that a new generation carry on its punk traditions. "I feel all the memories of the past, all the hope for the future and all the energy of the present, all at the same time," said Smith. Hundreds packed the small club.
Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea surprised the crowd, joining Smith's band for much of her second set. CBGB's closure has prompted protests, tributes and vigils for more than a year - a cycle ended when CBGB's owner, Hilly Kristal, gave up his legal fight to stay. CBGB, hailed by many as the birthplace of punk, opened in December'73 and over the years helped spawn the careers of such acts as the Ramones, Blondie, the Talking Heads and Television.
Though the club's glory days are long gone, it has remained a symbolic fixture on the Manhattan music scene. Blondie singer Deborah Harry performed at CBGB on Saturday, part of a weeklong send-off for the club. With a capacity of barely 300, CBGB was founded as a place of freedom for different musical acts.
Its letters stand for the music Kristal originally planned to present there - country, bluegrass and blues - but it quickly came to represent the physical epicentre of early punk and the storied downtown scene of'70s New York. Kristal plans to move the club to Las Vegas, and its store, CBGB Fashions, will move on Nov. 1 to a nearby location at Broadway and Bond Street.
"I'm thinking about tomorrow and the next day and the next day and going on to do more with CBGB's," Kristal said Sunday. The Bowery Residents Committee, which holds a 45-year lease on the building, houses 250 homeless people above the club. CBGB is its lone commercial tenant.
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