It was 2010 and Minnesota supergroup GAYNGS was hosting a CD release party at First Ave, when Prince appeared side stage. Britt Aamodt recounts what happened next.

Before First Avenue was a club, it was a bus terminal. Britt Aamodt looks at the origins of the Greyhound Northland Bus Depot.

Dan Corrigan’s first photographic assignment at First Avenue/7th Street Entry in 1981 wouldn’t be his last. Not by a long shot. Britt Aamodt’s piece examines the photographer who captured a lifetime of Minnesota music.

Lucinda Williams had played First Avenue before. But this night was special. Britt Aamodt reports on the wedding of the country star with her Minnesota beau before a packed Mainroom audience in September 2009.

Chris Riemenschneider, music critic at the Star Tribune, couldn’t believe no one had written a history of First Avenue. So he wrote one. Here is Britt Aamodt on Riemenschneider’s First Avenue: Minnesota’s Mainroom.

Woodstock breakout Joe Cocker had just come off a U.S. tour and really needed a break. But his North American manager had different ideas. Britt Aamodt has the story of the first live performance at the Depot, the Minneapolis club opened in 1970 that would later become First Avenue.

Nirvana had just come from a recording studio in Madison, Wisconsin, where the group made initial steps to record songs for a second album. Now, April 9, 1990, they were playing Minneapolis’ 7th Street Entry. Britt Aamodt offers a snapshot of the Seattle band on their way up, the year before their second album, Nevermind, went supernova.

Mark Wojahn, artist and filmmaker, had been coming to First Avenue/Entry shows since he was in high school. But then in 1992 at a Buffalo Tom—or was it Beastie Boys?—concert in the Mainroom, he saw her. Who was she? Britt Aamodt shares Mark Wojahn’s First Avenue love story.

By 1986, the Replacements had played First Avenue and the Entry more times than they could count. They’d grown up—as men and as musicians—there. Now they had to let one of their own go. Britt Aamodt has the story of guitarist Bob Stinson’s last hometown gig with the band.

In 1983, The Time brought in a crew to record their concert at First Avenue. Producer Britt Aamodt takes a look at the Minneapolis R&B and funk band the year before Purple Rain made them international stars, and how one of those live First Ave recordings made it onto the fim’s soundtrack.