Let’s remember when David Bowie played the very first concert in the Tacoma Dome, on this day in 1983 (August 11)

Photo from Ebay.

There’s lots of cool things about the Tacoma Dome, like how it’s the largest wooden-domed arena in the world. Thirty-six years ago today, they hosted their first concert.

The News Tribute wrote, upon Bowie’s untimely 2016 death:

The Tacoma Dome would like to create a memorial to David Bowie, the first rock star to play the Dome in 1983.

Kim Bedier, who oversees the Dome for the City of Tacoma, said staff members are scouring their archives for photos or posters from the 1983 concert.

She said they would like to create a memorial to the concert and to Bowie in the Dome concourse. She, too, grew up with Bowie and was mourning his loss on Monday.

“I guess we are all getting older and it’s going to happen more and more with our idols and artists we grew up with in rock ’n’ roll,” she said.

The News Tribune was at the 1983 concert as well. Reporter Bill Ripple described fans with Bowielike pink and orange spiky hair — back when that sort of thing was a novelty.

Ripple reported a near-sellout crowd of more than 20,000 decked out in “outlandish hairstyles and makeup,” but behaving themselves as “a model of decorum throughout the loud evening.”

One cop described the Bowie fans as “older and well-behaved.”

Crowd behavior apparently was weighing heavily on the minds of civic leaders during the Dome’s first rock concert. The wood-domed arena was the newest jewel in Tacoma’s crown back then, having opened in April 1983.

At the Bowie concert, Ripple talked to police and Dome staff members, as well as paramedics who dealt with fans collapsing from heat exhaustion, too much alcohol and at least one who went to the emergency room tripping on LSD.

Setlist.fm has the, uhh, setlist:

1. Star
2. “Heroes”
3. What in the World
4. Golden Years
5. Fashion
6. Let’s Dance
7. Breaking Glass
8. Life on Mars?
9. Sorrow (The McCoys cover)
10. Cat People (Putting Out Fire)
11. China Girl (Iggy Pop cover)
12. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
13. Rebel Rebel
14. White Light/White Heat (The Velvet Underground cover)
15. Station to Station
16. Cracked Actor
17. Ashes to Ashes
18. Space Oddity
19. Young Americans
20. Fame
21. TVC15
22. Stay

Encore:

1. The Jean Genie
2. Modern Love

For more reading:

David Bowie played Tacoma as first rock performer at the Dome