Before Providence Had the Amp and the Dunk, There Was This

The year 1972 was a pretty heady one for this kid. I was 14 years old, learning about girls and music and dreaming about making it big, though I wasn't sure at what.

FM radio was coming of age back then, but AM was still king, churning out the hits and making local stars out of the disc jockeys that played the hits.

Andy "Big Ange" Jackson, Jimmy Gray and Davy Jones were a few of the "jocks" that shook things up in the Providence radio market in the early '70s and beyond. Gray (James Hargraves) was from New Bedford and launched his radio career at WNBH, where Big Ange would land later in the decade.

WNBH, WSAR, WPRO and WRKO were among the many popular Top 40 stations in the area back then.

That was also the year the Providence Civic Center opened in downtown Providence. That meant that the acts whose music we were hearing on the radio had a new, modern place to perform.

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The concept of the Providence Civic Center first surfaced in 1958 on the site where the Providence Place Mall now stands. The failure to secure federal funds to build the civic center doomed the project.

Providence Mayor Joseph A. Doorley convinced voters to approve local funding for a civic center in 1968 and again in 1971.

Opening ceremonies for the new Providence Civic Center, held November 3, 1972, included a Providence Reds hockey game. In the first year the Civic Center was open, it hosted performances by Frank Sinatra and Pink Floyd.

The Providence Civic Center struggled financially in the '80s and '90s. In 2001, the Civic Center became the Dunkin' Donuts Center, resulting from a naming rights deal. In 2022, "The Dunk" became "The Amp," the Amica Mutual Pavilion.

The City of Providence owned and operated the Civic Center from 1972 until 2005, when the Rhode Island Convention Center Authority took ownership.

Other headliners to appear at the civic center included Led Zeppelin, The Grateful Dead, Elvis Presley, Queen, YES, George Harrison, Bee Gees, KISS, David Bowie, The Kinks, Van Halen, Garth Brooks, Rod Stewart and Eric Clapton.