Several weeks ago as I was cruising the Miami-Dade Metrorail into Downtown Miami we stopped at the Historic Overtown station. I glanced over at a large pile of leftover debris that sat where the Miami Arena once sat. They were building that arena when I first moved to America’s Rivera at the end of 1987. It sat there for 21 years, but its heyday was obviously the 1990s when both the Heat and the Panthers occupied the building. During much of the decade the arena was booming with business up to 5 nights a week with either basketball, hockey, arena football, or music concerts. As the 1990s came to a close its tenants began moving out and into new homes. The Miami Arena began dying a slow death. It was demolished just a few months ago:
I visited The Miami Arena when it was a fresh new modern facility. It was on a warm and rainy night on Friday June 30TH 1989 when I attended a 5-hour concert there sponsored by POWER-96. It was “Club MTV On Tour”, and ‘Downtown’ Julie Brown and the Club MTV Dancers hosted the shindig which featured some of the hottest pop acts at the time LIVE in concert including Was (Not Was), The Information Society, Lisa Lisa And Cult Jam, Tone Loc, and YES – the hottest pop act of them all in 1989 – Milli Vanilli ! Rob and Fab defined pop music in 1989 with their 5 TOP 5 smash hits in a row. This was ultimately the biggest smash of them all – “Baby Don’t Forget My Number”:
That’s “Baby Don’t Forget My Number” from Milli Vanilli – one of the biggest smash hits of 1989 !
‘Saturday Night Retro’ returns in 2 weeks. We’ll see ya then !
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