Bob Dylan, Frank Zappa and Rage Against the Machine shared the sweaty locker rooms, too.

The 45-year legacy of the Chick Evans Field House will not just be remembered for its athletic events, but also for its memorable history of musical performances.

The fieldhouse built its foundation of concerts on acts like the Grateful Dead, the Smashing Pumpkins, R.E.M., Santana and Bruce Springsteen. More recently, Wyclef Jean, De La Soul and Nelly have played the venue.

Other acts that have performed in the fieldhouse include Cheap Trick, the Black Crowes, Steppenwolf, the Wallflowers, REO Speedwagon, Less Than Jake, Hall and Oates, Counting Crows, Blues Traveler and Peter Gabriel.

Mark Cerny, owner of Record Revolution, 817 W. Lincoln Highway, will remember the venue.

“I’ve seen 28 years of concerts come and go,” said Cerny, who has owned Record Rev since 1973. “It was nice to bring top-quality bands into DeKalb, but the facility wasn’t the best as far as the acoustics and the seating. But they made good use of what they had.”

When it came down to it, the fieldhouse was just the right size.

“The Chick Evans was a solid performer for many years,” Cerny said. “But that was the one that had the magic number of the seating capacity you need to bring in a band like the Grateful Dead. You needed 5,000 seats.”

Perhaps the fieldhouse’s most memorable entertainment event was the Grateful Dead concert, held Oct. 29, 1977. The show sold out, but at its cost of $41,000, it still stands as the most expensive concert in NIU’s history.

Northern Star reporter G. Alexander reviewed the show in the next day’s paper. Here are some excerpts from that article: “Anyone who missed the Grateful Dead Saturday night missed a spectacular show, period. The Dead had powerful magic that night and the fieldhouse crowd had enough excitement and energy to light up Chicago. Together, the lit-up crowd and the Dead made the concert the biggest and most exciting concert ever in this expanding corn town.”

At the time, the show seemed to be a possible turning point in concert quality. The article continued: “The SA Concert Committee of NIU went through many problems but they came out on top because they really got the feel of a big concert along with big problems. Now let’s hope they can take this new wealth of knowledge and use it to bring more successful concerts to this campus, regardless of the cost.”

Despite the success of the Dead show, sellouts were rare for fieldhouse performances. Recent performances headlined by Wyclef Jean and Nelly both were attended poorly. A 1990 performance by legend Bob Dylan struggled to fill half of the fieldhouse’s 5,000-seat capacity.

However, the fieldhouse was never alone in its struggle to sell tickets, as on-campus shows at NIU historically have had bad attendance.

On-campus concerts of the future most likely will be held in NIU’s arena, the $36 million Convocation Center, which is scheduled to open in the fall.