If you've ever seen the movie La Bamba then, on top of the insurmountable tragedy, you witnessed a recreation of an all-star performance at Brooklyn's Paramount Theater. Built in 1928, the theater held 4,124 seats, showing movies and hosting concerts. It closed in 1962, just a few years after Ritchie Valens performed there in 1958. Valens's performance was part of the legendary Alan Freed '50s rock 'n' roll Jubilees, which would (according to The Day The Music Died) be "all-day affairs," with performers delivering the same set of songs several times throughout the day. Fun fact: The Chirping Crickets (led by Buddy Holly) even shot their album cover on the rooftop of the Paramount, "using the natural blue sky as a backdrop."
Long before it became an early home of rock n' roll, vaudevillian acts like Mae West, crooners like Bing Crosby, and jazz greats like Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington were center stage.
These days the theater is serving as a gymnasium for Long Island University, where the original Wurlitzer organ remains (Cinema Treasures notes it's still used for basketball games). While some say it's moved way past its glory days in appearance, it still has a "grand staircase, wrought iron Juliet balconies, huge deco chandeliers and 40-foot high white wedding cake ceiling." Click through for photos from one of Freed's concerts back in 1958. The last live rock n' roll stage show there was Clay Cole's Easter Parade of Stars, with headliner Jackie Wilson.
