The fact that the venerable live music club First Avenue occupies a former Greyhound Bus terminal in downtown Minneapolis might have prompted patrons when it first opened in 1970 to joke that the venue might be going places. As it turned out, First Avenue has instead stuck around. Five decades later, the venue is celebrated as one of the longest-running, independently owned and operated venues in the United States, and is widely recognized as the musical epicenter of the Twin Cities. Perhaps best known as the recording location of Prince’s “Purple Rain,” which became the title track for the eponymous landmark film that also featured the club, First Avenue has hosted countless nationally- and internationally-acclaimed music artists like Green Day, Public Enemy, Ray Charles, Megadeth, Tina Turner, and many others over the years. The venue also became the incubator for most of the artists who formed Minneapolis’ moment atop the ever-moving American music locus in the 1980s, including...
