Well, you know already that it's closed, and you knew that Patti Smith would perform on the last night, which she did, of course, on Sunday. But did you know what she said during the Q&A session she held with the crowd during her sound check? Well, read on if you don't.
On whether she would perform at the new CBGBs planned for Las Vegas: "We had a job in Las Vegas four years ago and we sold 85 tickets and they cancelled the show. I've never been there. When you only sell 85 tickets out of 2,000, you don't go into that town."
On the closure: "CBGB is a state of mind, and what's going to happen is young kids all over the world are going to have their own fucking clubs and they won't care about CBGB because they're going to have the new places and the new places are always the most important."
On club owner Hilly Kristal: "Hilly believed in us, he shepherded us, he was non-judgemental and he always gave us a job, just like tonight. Hilly was our friend, he was our champion and in those days they were very few, so we're all grateful to Hilly. We were all thinking 'What word should we put on our piano? Should we put "CBGB"? Should we put "Farewell'? Should we put "Peace"? Should we put "Save the Environment"?' We all decided the best word we could write was 'Hilly'. And I have to say it was a very Hilly existence here!"