The House that Roars will soon grow silent with the opening of the Stroh Center next fall, but the echoes of shows past will continue to define the building that has housed some of music’s most popular artists in recent history.

Construction for Memorial Hall was completed in 1960, and the building received its name in tribute to 78 University students who lost their lives in the two World Wars and the Korean War. The building’s basketball court was officially dedicated Anderson Arena in 1963, named for former University basketball coach, athletic director and professor, Harold Anderson. The building has served as venue to the majority of all large-act concert events on campus since.

Many may be familiar with some of the more recent acts to play the venue. Ohio-grown rockers O.A.R. played in Anderson Arena twice during the 2000s, with their first show in 2002 occurring just as the band was beginning to receive mainstream attention.

Other acts to take the stage during the past decade include Green Day, Dashboard Confessional, Third Eye Blind and the Black Eyed Peas, as well as popular rappers Ludacris, Soulja Boy and Kid Cudi. At the start of the decade in 2001, the arena hosted a major double-bill event with popular alternative band Bush and electronic mastermind Moby teaming up as part of an MTV College Tour.

The ’70s saw many of the era’s most influential acts come to the University to feed a generation with an insatiable hunger for live music. A glance over the list of acts that performed during this time feels something like reading over the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame roster.

The early half of the decade saw visits from national and world-renowned acts such as Chicago, the Temptations, Jethro Tull and Steve Miller Band, according to articles pulled from The BG News archives. Approaching the decade’s midway point, hugely popular band Aerosmith played at Anderson in 1974, and folk-rock legends Crosby and Nash serenaded students with a concert in 1975. Jefferson Starship, formerly Jefferson Airplane, performed the same year.

The University’s concert success and the unabated appetite of its student body during this time even compelled the University in 1975 to try its hand in the large music festival business. The now-infamous Poe Ditch Festival was held in 1975 at Doyt Perry Stadium and brought a crowd of 33,000 fans, according to the University’s centennial website.

Intense traffic congestion, widespread drug use and littering, however, caused then-University President Hollis Moore to declare the event a “first time-last time” occurrence, and Anderson Arena received future shows.

The festival mishap did not slow the coming of more legendary artists to the University, though. Jazz guitar great George Benson stepped onto Anderson’s stage in 1977. That year also saw performances by the Doobie Brothers and Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. In 1979, fiddle connoisseur Charlie Daniels lit up an enthusiastic crowd of cowboy hat-wearing country fanatics.

The 1977 Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band show featured the soon-to-be-successful British-American rock band, Foreigner, as the event’s opener and, according to an e-mail from University Activities Organization President Natalie Jovich, the show was Foreigner’s first ever live appearance in the United States. The band would go on to sell millions of albums worldwide.

Weston, Ohio, resident Rick Cocke, 58, formerly of Bowling Green, said he attended a long list of concerts at Anderson Arena during this time.

“We’re going back a long time here, but I’d have to guess it was at least 20,” he recalled. “They used to have concerts there all the time.”

Cocke pointed to shows by J. Geils Band, Yes, Bob Seger and several performances by Jethro Tull as the most memorable concerts he attended at Anderson. He was 20 years old when Tull first took the Arena’s stage in 1972 and he continues to cite the concert as one of the best the venue has held.

“It was all general admission back then and everyone crowded to get to the front,” he said. “They were a very entertaining rock ‘n’ roll band at the time and Ian Anderson playing the flute was especially entertaining.”

Cocke said he believes both the quantity and quality of the arena’s concerts during this time are attributable to the overall popularity of music during the era and the acts it produced.

But the Arena’s concert days will soon come to a close.

All large concerts will move from Anderson Arena to the new Stroh Center upon its opening next fall, according to University head of marketing, Dave Kielmeyer. Official plans for the old arena are yet undecided, he said, but plans are being considered for possible classrooms and select athletic events, gymnastics being a likely candidate.

Improved acoustics and layout will give the Stroh Center a technical advantage, but looking back at its predecessor’s history, the new venue has some large shoes to fill.