Knuckleheads Saloon
| Knuckleheads | |
Knuckleheads Saloon - East Bottoms
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| Location | 2715 Rochester St, Kansas City, MO |
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| Coordinates | 39°07′14″N 94°32′55″W / 39.12047°N 94.54874°W |
| Owner | Frank & Mary Hicks |
| Type | Concert Hall |
| Genre(s) | Blues, Americana, Jazz, Roots, Gospel, Country |
| Construction | |
| Built | 1887 |
| Opened | 2001 |
| Website | |
| Knucklehead's | |
Knuckleheads Saloon is a music venue in Kansas City, Missouri. The facility is a complex of four stages: a large outdoor stage with a converted caboose to one side as a VIP seating area; a 220-seat indoor stage; a large indoor stage known as Knuckleheads Garage and a 50-seat lounge, the "Retro Room", which doubles as the "Gospel Lounge" for Wednesday-evening blues-oriented church services. Live music can be presented on all four stages at once. The venue presents live music Wednesday through Sunday, with occasional Tuesday concerts.
The original building was built in 1887 as a railroad boardinghouse, across the street from the original location of early Kansas City amusement park Electric Park. A very active train track runs close by the outdoor stage and performers have had to become accustomed to train whistles blowing during shows. Singer-songwriter Joe Ely was performing his song Boxcar on the outdoor stage when a train came by, blowing its whistle at the right point in the song. Ely said he had "...waited 20 years for a train to come by at the perfect timing".
Knuckleheads Saloon is owned by Frank and Mary Hicks, who owned an auto body shop called Mid-City Collision Repair. They opened a Harley-Davidson motorcycle dealership across the street from Mid-City in 1997 called F.O.G. Cycles (an acronym for "Fucking Old Guys"), and sponsored street parties as a promotional tool, giving away free beer. In 2001, Hicks obtained a liquor license and the bar opened as Knucklehead's Saloon in homage to a trio of his cycling friends, calling themselves The Three Stooges. In 2004, Hicks closed F.O.G. Cycles to concentrate on the club. Mid-City has a mural painted on the wall facing Knuckleheads featuring rock, blues and country icons Elvis Presley, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Hank Williams Sr., Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Buddy Holly and many others.
The location in the East Bottoms on Rochester Street, bordered on the east by Montgall Ave, on the east by the North Chestnut Trafficway overpass and the south by railroad tracks can be difficult to find. The entire East Bottoms area is separated from Front Street and the highway system on the north by five very active sets of train tracks. GPS systems and most mapping web sites will steer the traveler to access the venue via Front Street, and do not take the train tracks into consideration.
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Wikipedia