Magnetic keyholder. This one is not hidden at any of the venues on the map, but rather just a couple hundred feet down the hill from where one of the musicians mentioned on the map (John Denver) recorded his album “Different Directions.” FTF prize is a CD of recorded highlights from the Who concert in Omaha, December 7 2006.
There are those who think of Omaha as an out-of-the-way backwater town where we’re still circling the covered wagons and dodging stray arrows. We residents know better, of course. First off, Omaha is right in the middle of things, which makes it easier for folks to stop by. Over the last hundred years, Omaha has hosted an impressive roster of world-class musicians in a performance setting. This custom map marks 17 different venues along with rosters of musicians who have performed there.
The map doesn’t even include UNO, Boys Town, Creighton U, Werner Park, the Ranch Bowl, Sandy’s Escape, and the MAC and the casino showrooms over in Council Bluffs. Here's a closer look at the map:
Can you match the map numbers, musician rosters and venues together? Rosters don’t summarize one individual concert, of course, although I would love to attend a Pearl Jam / Metallica / Lawrence Welk triple bill.
The list of artists who have appeared at more than one of these venues includes Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen, Simon and Garfunkel, Neil Diamond, John Denver, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Little Feat and local faves 311 and Conor Oberst. The answer chart (below) includes some additional concerts attended by the cache owner, so thanks in advance for indulging me in making this cache also a bit of a diary. I’d be very interested in reading the logs for your own memories. Did you know that the 1920-1921 season of the Omaha Tuesday Musical Concert Series (which continues to this day) included violinist Fritz Kreisler and pianist/composer Sergei Rachmaninoff? Or that, according to the Omaha World-Herald, there’s no actual police or hotel report of Grand Funk Railroad trashing a hotel room with four groupies as they claimed to have done in “We’re an American Band”?
Sources: songkick.com, Wikipedia, Omaha World-Herald, cathedralartsproject.org, Omaha Performing Arts.
Tools: GSAK, GPSVisualizer, OpenStreetMap, GIMP, OpenOffice.
For the truly map-obsessed, there's information about the map sources (and tools used to create the new maps) at the WBs geocaching blog. Use the "Related Web Page" link above.