“It’s all about the music.”
That’s the defining statement about the College Street Music Hall, which opens Friday, May 1, amid much fanfare in downtown New Haven. The major new venue blends the current trend for comfortable, acoustically sound concert halls with the specific need for a room that can handle bands that are too big for many theaters but not right for stadiums.
Music-centricity is the mission of Keith Mahler, president of Premier Concerts, who says the project “merges my three great loves (besides my wife, of course): the music business, real estate development and real estate investment. That’s the key to this whole deal: real estate turnaround.”
Mahler’s various companies are financing the renovations to the long-dormant 238 College Street venue, managing day-to-day operations and taking the lead in booking the entertainment.
It is in fact one of the biggest turnarounds in downtown entertainment since the city of New Haven revived the dormant Shubert Theater, just across the street from the Music Hall, in the mid-1980s.
Downtown New Haveners know the Music Hall building as the former Palace Performing Arts Center, which once hosted the likes of Lou Reed, Joan Armatrading, Brian May of Queen, Bjork and numerous theater and dance companies. Before that it was the site of two different moviehouses, the Rialto and the Roger Sherman. But the space has been deserted for over a decade. Although there’ve been attempts in the past to restore it, many of the city assumed it had gone the way of umpteen theaters, department stores, arenas and other large downtown buildings of the 20th century.
But the city of New Haven, under first-term mayor Toni Harp, has been looking for new opportunities to bring people downtown, and Yale University, which owns a lot of property in the area, was amenable to a concert hall in the neighborhood. So the nonprofit organization New Haven Center for the Performing Arts, which oversaw the Palace, was reactivated. NHCPA called in Premier Concerts, which was instrumental in the revival of a different Palace Theater, in Waterbury.
The College Street Music Hall isn’t just a new theater in an ideal location — in the heart of downtown, half a block from the green and easy walking distance from the Yale dorms. It will bring in acts that don’t currently have a place to play in the city.
As Keith Mahler says, “It’s the right venue in the right location at the right time.” With “listening room” theaters ranging in capacity from 225 seats (like Fairfield Theatre Company’s Stage One) to 500 (the new Infinity Hall in Hartford), and venerable rock clubs such as Toad’s Place and The Webster able to squeeze 1,000 and 1,250 onto their dance floors respectively, College Music Hall offers the scale of a large club and the comfort of a seated theater. The Palace’s stage and backstage areas have also been remodeled.
Mark Nussbaum’s Manic Productions is one of the local booking agencies who’ll be helping Premier and New Haven Performing Arts keep the Palace vital. Nussbaum has been bringing important rock shows to Connecticut for a decade now, from lending crucial early support to cult bands like Titus Andronicus, Ariel Pink and Dirty Projectors to co-producing with Premier some outstanding Shubert concerts by David Byrne, the Pixies and Neutral Milk Hotel.
Nussbaum explains that the Music Hall auditorium can “take different shapes and sizes, which can range from 650 seats (with the balcony area closed) to a general-admission floor-filling capacity of 2000. Nussbaum describes it as “not a club atmosphere, but I wouldn’t call it a theater atmosphere either. It’s a combination. Plus it’s all-ages, which is great.” This versatility can be used to accommodate to attract a wider range of acts. Saturday’s Lyle Lovett/John Hiatt show, for instance, will have seats on the floor.
In a gesture of music community cooperation and celebration, Nussbaum has arranged for the first Manic production at the Music Hall to be a Connecticut-themed night of Polaris (the houseband for the classic 1990s Nickelodeon children’s show “The Adventures of Pete & Pete,” featuring former members of New Haven legends Miracle Legion), the Stratford-based husband-wife dance-pop duo Mates of State and Mighty Purple, whose frontman Steve Rodgers happens to run the Space complex of clubs in Hamden. The other founding member of Mighty Purple, Steve’s brother Jonny, is being flown from his current home in Portland, Oregon, expressly for the May 9 gig. Nussbaum says that Manic will continue to book shows into other, smaller local venues.
Like the Shubert, Toad’s, Oakdale and many other venues in the state, the College Street Music Hall won’t be open every night, just when it has shows booked. There are five on the May calendar: an opening night spectacular Friday, May 1, with Pink Floyd tribute band The Machine performing “Dark Side of the Moon” in its entirety, backed by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra; alt-country icons Lovett and Hiatt May 2; that proudly local Polaris/Mates of States/Mighty Purple bill May 9; The Doobie Brothers May 24; and comedian Tig Notaro May 30. The Notaro show is a three-way production of Premier, Manic and local comedy promoters Fistful of Jokes.
That first month gives you a good sense of the diversity planned for College Street Music Hall. June offers double bills of Kenny Wayne Shepherd & Jonny Lang and Reel Big Fish with Less Than Jake, plus Mike Gordon (whose band Phish played the Palace theater in 1992) and Atlanta blues-rockers Blackberry Smoke.
For Nussbaum, a July 27 booking of one of his all-time favorite bands, the literate indie sensation Decemberists and Lady Lamb, an act he’s booked into increasingly larger spaces over the past couple of years, is particularly satisfying.
“It’s incredible,” he says. “It’s a missing link in New Haven to have a room of this size.”
For Premier’s Keith Mahler, whose personal tastes include a love of the new folk movement, the College Street Music Hall is “the combination of a 10-year odyssey and a dream come true.”
THE COLLEGE STREET MUSIC HALL is at 238 College St., New Haven, on College between Chapel and Crown. Information: collegestreetmusichall.com.
