Rockford, IL the third largest city in Illinois is the home of power-pop legends "Cheap Trick". Oddball guitarist Rick Nielsen, known for his flipped-brim caps, checkerboard-patterned threads, and multi-neck axes, still lives in the city and is one of its most ardent boosters.
“I love Rockford,” Nielsen says in his four-page spread in the town’s official tourist guide. “This is where my friends live, this is where my family is from, where I got kicked out of band in junior high [for calling the teacher an ‘incompetent, drunken fool’]. It’s home !”
The Coronado opened on October 9, 1927 as an atmospheric style theater and movie palace - complete with Spanish castles, Italian villas, oriental dragons, starlit skies and a Grande Barton Pipe Organ. Countless show business legends, including the Marx Brothers, Tommy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, George Gershwin, Bob Hope, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Gypsy Rose Lee have performed on the Coronado Theater stage.
The Coronado was the romantic setting for untold movie-going couples on their first date, and a Saturday outing for kids watching cartoons and movies through 1984.
After decades of use, the grand dame Coronado received a much needed facelift between 1999 and 2001, with the community-wide support of the city of Rockford, individuals and corporations. Spear-headed by the Friends of the Coronado, a non-profit organization formed in 1997, the theater was reborn in January, 2001 in its original grand style as a state-of-the-art performance and entertainment facility after an $18.5 million restoration.
Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick was an honorary member of the committee to restore the theater and donated an undisclosed amount toward its renovation.
When asked what he wanted to be written on a plaque to be displayed in the lobby, he initially didn’t want to be recognized, but then remembered a first kiss as a kid way up in the balcony and asked for this chair instead.
The Coronado Performing Arts Center, Rockford, Illinois, Row NN, Seat 13.
“I love Rockford,” Nielsen says in his four-page spread in the town’s official tourist guide. “This is where my friends live, this is where my family is from, where I got kicked out of band in junior high [for calling the teacher an ‘incompetent, drunken fool’]. It’s home !”
The Coronado opened on October 9, 1927 as an atmospheric style theater and movie palace - complete with Spanish castles, Italian villas, oriental dragons, starlit skies and a Grande Barton Pipe Organ. Countless show business legends, including the Marx Brothers, Tommy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, George Gershwin, Bob Hope, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Gypsy Rose Lee have performed on the Coronado Theater stage.
The Coronado was the romantic setting for untold movie-going couples on their first date, and a Saturday outing for kids watching cartoons and movies through 1984.
After decades of use, the grand dame Coronado received a much needed facelift between 1999 and 2001, with the community-wide support of the city of Rockford, individuals and corporations. Spear-headed by the Friends of the Coronado, a non-profit organization formed in 1997, the theater was reborn in January, 2001 in its original grand style as a state-of-the-art performance and entertainment facility after an $18.5 million restoration.
Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick was an honorary member of the committee to restore the theater and donated an undisclosed amount toward its renovation.
When asked what he wanted to be written on a plaque to be displayed in the lobby, he initially didn’t want to be recognized, but then remembered a first kiss as a kid way up in the balcony and asked for this chair instead.
The Coronado Performing Arts Center, Rockford, Illinois, Row NN, Seat 13.
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