History: Wings Stadium

Wings Stadium:

“Home of Rock & Roll”

by Keith Howard, Kalamazoo Public Library

It’s impossible to have a conversation about the West Michigan concert scene without mentioning Wings Stadium. During the latter half of the 1970s and continuing well into the new millennium, Kalamazoo’s “home of Rock and Roll” hosted hundreds of pop and rock concerts by some of the biggest names in the business. By the 1970s, rock concerts had become a phenomenon, although Kalamazoo lacked a suitable facility outside of WMU. The growing popularity of hockey saw the 1,800 seat Kalamazoo Ice Arena go up on South 11th Street in 1972. That’s where local promoters attempted a handful of shows by the likes of King Crimson and Bachman Turner Overdrive, but poor parking and the construction of Lawson Arena at WMU brought an end to that facility. (The building now houses West Side Beer Distributing.) In early 1974, entrepreneurs Ted and Martha Parfet brought professional hockey to town when they started the Kalamazoo Wings and built a new stadium home for the club near I-94. In addition to hockey, the multi-use arena was designed to accommodate a variety of events, from circus and ice shows to rock concerts, for audiences up to 8,000. This changed everything. Just weeks after the Kalamazoo Wings’ home opener in October 1974, The Chambers Brothers (“Time Has Come Today”) kicked off a decades-long run of popular concerts at the new venue.

Indeed, the time had come for live music in Kalamazoo. Within weeks of its opening, shows by REO Speedwagon, The Doobie Brothers, and megastar Bob Hope drew thousands to the new arena. Admission to most shows was $6.50.

Thanks to internationally known manufacturers like the Gibson guitar company and professional sound reinforcement experts like ProCo Sound (a local manufacturer of audio cables), many touring musicians were well familiar with Kalamazoo. And while Kalamazoo was seen as a secondary market in entertainment business circles, the stadium’s proximity to I-94 made the stop midway between two major markets (Detroit and Chicago) a nobrainer.

Building on the success of those early shows, the late 1970s through the 1990s proved to be a heyday for concerts at the stadium. Pretty much everybody who was anybody in those days performed there and sellouts of 7,000 or more were common. From AC/DC to Zappa, many of the world’s leading entertainers performed at Wings Stadium … Eric Clapton, Elvis Presley, Waylon Jennings, Eddie Murphy, Diana Ross, Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Prince, Lenny Kravitz, Tool, Nirvana, Metallica, Elton John… the list goes on and on. And the audiences at Wings Stadium made Kalamazoo a place where entertainers sought to perform. Several well-known artists kicked off major concert tours at the stadium and often returned for multiple engagements, largely due of the legions of adoring fans here. By 2015, when the name was changed to Wings Event Center, the concert schedule had slowed considerably, although shows there do still happen on occasion. Later this year, veteran metal rockers Judas Priest and Queensrÿche are slated to return, perhaps proving that the venerable old stadium is still “the home of Rock and Roll.”

Check the Kalamazoo Public Library website for an expanded version of this article and a complete list of concerts at Wings Stadium, including opening acts, ticket prices, attendance fi gures, and more. For a more complete story , go to kpl.gov/local-history