The Tower Theater’s journey from dying theater to legendary concert hall

Before Upper Darby’s Tower Theater became one of the region’s premier concert halls, it was an aging movie theater on life support.

That’s according to a recent piece by “Billy Penn” as part of its “Headlines of Yore” series, which recounts stories of Philadelphia’s history. The article noted that the Tower Theater opened in 1928 under the ownership of John H. McClatchy, a real estate developer who is credited with making Upper Darby into a commercial hub.

In its early years, the theater showed films and hosted vaudeville acts and other stage shows, and it was replete with an organ and marble stairs. The Tower struggled in the postwar years, but it found a new life when purchased by rock promoter Rick Green, who rebranded it as a concert hall in the 1970s.

Although the venue seats fewer than 3,500, it has since hosted big names such as the Rolling Stones, U2, Radiohead, Bob Marley, Mary J. Blige, Janet Jackson, The Smiths, the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan and Oasis.