Armadillo World Headquarters, Music hall and beer garden in Austin, Texas.
Armadillo World Headquarters was a music hall in a former National Guard building at 525½ Barton Springs Road in Austin, Texas. The concert space held roughly 1000 guests and featured an outdoor beer garden.
The music hall opened its doors in August 1970 after another venue called Vulcan Gas Company had closed down. The final event took place on New Year's Eve 1980, after which the building was torn down and replaced with offices.
The hall brought rural and urban crowds into one room, where both groups listened to the same bands and drank the same beer. This mix shaped social life in Austin throughout the seventies and changed how people thought about musical genres.
The site sat south of downtown Austin near the Colorado River along Barton Springs Road. The premises were accessible from a street that still exists today, though the original building no longer stands.
Australian band AC/DC played their first concert on American soil here in July 1977, opening their first tour through the United States. This debut happened just months before their album Let There Be Rock was released in North America.
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