Stabler Arena

Stabler Arena is Lehigh University's 5,600-seat multi-purpose arena in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, located on its Goodman Campus in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania, in the United States. Opened in 1979, Stabler is an all-purpose arena, hosting athletic events, major concerts and children's events.

Athletics

Stabler Arena is home to the Lehigh University Mountain Hawks basketball teams, who play in college basketball's Patriot League. The conference has held portions of its men's tournament there three times. The Lehigh Valley Outlawz, a team in the Indoor Football League, also play their home games at Stabler.

Stabler also has hosted ABC's "Wide World of Sports" and the U.S. Women's gymnastics finals.

Music

Stabler is a regular stop for many major musical acts. Bands and artists that have performed multiple times at Stabler include Bryan Adams, Aerosmith, Michael Bolton, Bon Jovi, Breaking Benjamin, Bob Dylan, Whitney Houston, Fleetwood Mac, Goo Goo Dolls, Grateful Dead, Billy Joel, Metallica, David Gilmour from Pink Floyd, Queensrÿche, David Lee Roth, Yes, and others.

Because of the arena's reputation for exceptional acoustics and lively audiences, some musical acts have kicked off their U.S. concert tours at Stabler. These include: The Cranberries, Kiss, Bette Midler, and The Moody Blues.

Music videos from Stabler

Stabler has been the site for four music videos. The video for Whitney Houston's 1987 hit "So Emotional" and two Bon Jovi songs, "Bed of Roses" and "In These Arms", include footage from the artists' respective Stabler concerts.

The eastern Pennsylvania grunge rock band Breaking Benjamin used footage of their February 11, 2007 Stabler Arena concert as their music video for "Breath", which reached number one on U.S. Billboard charts in early 2007 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ3qJmgktS0] .

Breaking Benjamin DVD from Stabler

Breaking Benjamin's first live DVD, released with their album, "Phobia", features the band's entire February 11, 2007 Stabler Arena concert.

Broadcast on HDNet for the first time on March 4, 2007, Breaking Benjamin's globally-broadcast Stabler concert and the DVD of it were influential in propelling "Breath" and "The Diary of Jane" to two of the most successful U.S. singles of 2007.

Nirvana bootleg from Stabler

The grunge rock band Nirvana performed at Stabler on November 9, 1993, less than five months before lead singer Kurt Cobain committed suicide at his Lake Washington residence. This show has since become one of the band's most widely circulated bootleg recordings because of its proximity to Cobain's death, representing one of Nirvana's final U.S. shows [http://www.livenirvana.com/dvd/1993/dvd_11-09-93b.php] .

Kiss bootleg from Stabler

On October 1, 1992, the rock band Kiss kicked off their global tour at Stabler Arena. Kiss's Stabler concert was the first arena show on the tour, following smaller, warm-up venues in Europe and the U.S. It was the first show to use a giant, pyrotechnic mock up of the Statue of Liberty that became the tour's trademark.

Kiss's 1992 Stabler show has since become one of the band's most widely-circulated video bootleg recordings because of its status as a kick-off date for the last tour the group played before their later 1996 and subsequent tours featuring a return to their trademark make-up and a reuniting of the band's original line up.

External links

* [http://www.stablerarena.com/home.htm Stabler Arena Official Web Site] .
* [http://www.ticketmaster.com/venue/16408 Upcoming Stabler Arena events at Ticketmaster] .
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ3qJmgktS0 Breaking Benjamin's music video for "Breath", recorded at Stabler Arena] , February 11, 2007.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBf2cMv29rk Breaking Benjamin performs "The Diary of Jane" at Stabler Arena] , February 11, 2007.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYVzJpT2_5o Nirvana's performance of "All Apologies" at Stabler Arena] , November 9, 1993.