Just before Chicago's long-running classic rock station WLUP was replaced by Christian music programming at the stroke of midnight last night, the devil got his chance to say goodbye thanks to AC/DC , Iron Maiden and Motley Crue .
According to numerous fan reports and videos (which you can see and hear below), the last three songs played before the station nicknamed "the Loop" signed off were Motley Crue's "Shout at the Devil," Iron Maiden's "The Number of the Beast" and AC/DC's "Highway to Hell."
WLUP was founded in 1977, and drew national attention two years later with the infamous Disco Demolition Night. In a pyrotechnic protest against the popular dance music craze, the station actually blew up a pile of disco records that fans brought to Comiskey Park, home of baseball’s Chicago White Sox. Unfortunately, things got out of hand when some of the 60,000 fans in attendance overwhelmed the security team, charging and damaging the field and forcing the cancellation of the second half of the night's doubleheader.
“We tried to break new ground, to break the rules, to be different and had amazing, talented people,” former station impresario Jimmy de Castro told the Chicago Tribune . “We had a hell of a lot of fun.” After earning a spot as the city's third most popular station in 1979, WLUP slipped to 15th in the latest Nielsen survey for Chicago, with a 2.9 share.
The good news is that the Loop lives on...on the internet at least. You can listen to a streaming version of the station at wlup.com , and show your support for the station by buying their official T-shirt .
Decyde on March 10th, 2018 at 23:06 UTC »
Sad when I look back at the 2 radio stations everyone listened to in the late 90's.
One eventually sold out and became a country radio station and the other one mocked them for about a year. Then some oldie rock station bought them out and that was it for them.
It was crazy before they were gone. I found out if you listened to them between 1 am and 3 am weekdays that no one ever called in for contests. I'd have my radio on late at night on school nights listening to see if they had contests before I went to bed because if they did, I'd grab the cordless phone and take it to my bedroom.
They use to have a rule you could only win up to 3 times per month depending on what it was but they were nice enough to wave that for me because no one called at all for the prizes.
The prizes weren't anything huge but things like posters, tshirts and CD's.
SeaCoffee on March 10th, 2018 at 22:19 UTC »
I listened to this station every day on my way to work. They played solid classics.
I'll tell you what though...the amount of dick pill advertisements they played before they signed off was maddening.
TooShiftyForYou on March 10th, 2018 at 22:06 UTC »
This was the same station that held the infamous Disco Demolition Night in 1979. Sad to see such a classic station die out.