On October 27, 1956, the “Biggest In Person Show of ’56” rolled into Syracuse for two shows at the Onondaga County War Memorial, with Bill Haley & His Comets at the top of a bill that also carried the Platters, 14-year-old Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers, Clyde McPhatter, the Clovers and Chuck Berry. It was the city’s second rock ’n’ roll caravan of the year, arriving the night after a stop in Rochester and a day before the package played Buffalo’s Memorial Auditorium. Haley held the headline slot, but Lymon’s “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” had made the Teenagers the hottest act on the tour, while Berry, fresh off “Roll Over Beethoven,” was billed further down among the supporting names. Seventy years later, it reads like a roll call of rock’s founders: five future Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees on one Syracuse stage in a single night.
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