Yeah I hear from Beantwon friends that the whole Fenway/Kenmore Square area is built up and fancy from when I was last there, about 30 years ago.
No House of Blues....But always tons of nightclubs that came and went.
“The Cask & Flagon is still on the corner of Landsdown” I was only there once. 1974 to see Bruce Springsteen, because he was so hyped. He was OK. His band was wearing black leather “greaser” type jackets.
My one “literal” brush with fame was bumping into Bruce Springsteen as we were passing in/out of the locker room at the SU Carrier Dome in 1985. I worked events production at the dome in my jumior/senior year of college there. He was there to play sound checks for the Born in the USA tour and a couple shows to follow on the next weekend.
At the time he had a real pretty blonde girlfriend who was on some tv show. She was walking in the tunnel and as she went by I turned to check her out “walking away” and bumped into this 5’7” ish dark curly haired skinny guy with a three day old beard. We both said excuse me and kept on walking. My boss was at the end of the tunnel and said “do you know who that was that you bumped into?” I replied no. He says “that was Bruce Springsteen”. I replied ‘that little guy?”(I am 5’ 10”)
Springsteen came out a few minutes later and introduced himself to everyone. Shook our hands. Thanked us for setting up. He was pretty impressed with the Carrier Dome. Saying it was a big place. He had never played to an arena that seated 50,000 for a concert before. He said he had never played at a place bigger than the Garden before that.
The whole time his girlfriend sat all by herself and never said hello to anyone. Bruce and the band played a set for us(about 30 of us staff). Did sound checks and sat at different places around the dome to see how it sounded even up in the top, way in the back.
Of all the entertainers that played there over the two years I worked there Bruce seemed like the most down to earth. The most approachable. A blue collar guy that had made it big. This was when he really hit it big for the first time. Way before he started being political.
Other entertainers that came over the years acted like they were above us. For example, Prince played there shortly after and did not want to even speak to us lowlifes. He was surrounded by a half dozen 6’+ black dudes. He wore 6” heels and was maybe 5’ tall. Us young college boys were more interested in his former back up singer Sheila E anyway. She was smokin hot.