CBGB Closes: Punk Moves West

CBGB got its final workout on Sunday.  CBGB hosted its final concert last night after a 33-year residence in downtown New York as the iconic, grungy bastion of punk.

Blondie singer Deborah Harry performed at CBGB on Saturday, part of a weeklong send-off for the club.  The final show Sunday was headlined by Patti Smith.

Billboard details that Smith played her first show at CBGB in February 1975 and early on became synonymous with the East Village venue and the American punk movement that was birthed in and around it.

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Now punk moves west to the Vegas desert. 

CBGB will now be boarded shut, its contents packed up for the club's impending move to Las Vegas.  Hilly Kristal, the club's owner for all of its 33 years, has to be out by Halloween.

The legendary club will be redeveloped on the Vegas strip with everything salvageable being sent to the new venue -- including wall posters and the urinals though purists say the spirit of the place could never be transplanted to Las Vegas.

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But 'CBGB' owner Hilly Kristal says  there's a thriving punk and hardcore scene in Vegas operating underneath the glitzy mainstream shows, so maybe lightning can strike twice and the underground's superstars of the future will emerge from CBGB once again.

--Josh Hart writes from Las Vegas

On the web: http://www.cbgb.com