Memories of Virgin Megastore.

After serving the public for 38 years, Virgin Megastore, home to some of the world's biggest music stores will see its last stores close by June.

The music store is a dying industry as mentioned in previous blogs. Circuit City closed just a few weeks ago while Virgin's Times Square flagship store is in its last days.

I'd like to post some memories related to Virgin Megastore and if anyone has any to share, they're more than welcome to.

One of my first memories of going into the store was the first day I hung out with many of my current friends almost four years ago. At the time, it had a movie theater on the bottom floor.

The store changed like new pairs of underwear.

One of my favorite memories was November 22-23rd, 2004. It was the night that I was going to buy Evanescence's CD/DVD Anywhere But Home. It was also the same day that U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb came out. U2's album was played on the in-store radio station (one of the coolest things about the store). It was almost midnight and some guy who appeared to be Bono walked into the store. I had reason to believe that he wasn't going to just walk into a store in the middle of Times Square without being mobbed, but that didn't stop some people from actually walking out of the line to see "him". It was because U2 spent the day driving through New York City on a flatbed truck performing songs from the new album and their classic songs.

It was one of the few times that I actually went to see a midnight release which is probably why I remember it so well.

Another time I went to a midnight release was for Seether's Karma and Effect. It wasn't so memorable because it wasn't a huge music week, however, being in the heart of New York City and standing outside of the store for about an hour brought about its own experience. 

A lot of times, rappers would come by the store plugging their CD's. Since it was near summer and not raining, they were everywhere. One of my friends had actually gotten to talk on the syndicated radio show Rockline with Seether, but at one point there was a rapper who came close to her face rapping. She moved and he was rapping at the wall. One of those things where you had to be there to see it.

They also had a lot of in-store appearances. Two that I can remember were the Spanish group Aventura and Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx.

Union Square had quite a few in-store performances, but I was never lucky enough to go to one.

Anyway, enjoy the sales while you can and pray for the people that will be going unemployed.