my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. one of our favorite music venues in the state has closed. actually, i take that back. MAC650 was our favorite place to see music in Connecticut. it is closing for the usual reason — the same reason CBGB’s in NYC and Great Scott in Boston closed — bullshit landlords decided it was time to shut it down.
MAC650 was our favorite. was it the best? nah. the acoustics were miserable. the layout was strange and awkward (passerbys would sometimes pop their head in and just stand in the doorway watching like confused geese). the attendance was wildly predictable and sometimes just shitty, because it’s in Middletown. you know, Middletown, Connecticut! it’s not even the fifth town you think of when you think of “Connecticut”.
and yet MAC650 was our favorite. why? for reasons that aren’t easily crunched into numbers. the space represented a lot of things. it was a “semi-official” venue, everything was above-board of course, but it still felt like a house show. you’d see a bunch of familiar faces, but you’d also see a few strangers, who were almost always unfamiliar to the Connecticut local scene, but they were pulled into its orbit by the touring band. in that way, MAC650 was not only a place to see some great bands cutting loose, but it was a great recruiter of new audiences — people who have lived nearby and didn’t even know CT has such great musicians and songwriters.
thank you Matt Banta, and thank you Tiny Box Booking (who got so much great touring artists to stop by) for all the work you put into keeping MAC650 alive. they’re not going anywhere, of course, so keep an eye on them, especially once “live music” is a “thing” once “again”.
you can read Matt Banta’s official announcement about the closing by clicking on the image/facebook post below.
but wait! as one venue closes, another opens! Manic Presents / Premier Concerts, the good independent folks behind Space Ballroom and College Street Music Hall, have a new COVID-safe music venue. announced yesterday, South Farms is a big, outdoor, wide-open spot where bands can perform their music for audiences in real-time. they called it “live music” back in the Before Times, but the general principle is that artists will recreate their work in front of you. this “live music” was put on pause when the coronavirus shut everything down. but South Farms is low-capacity and open-air. so it’s much safer than moshing with a bunch of dirty stoners at the crunch house, in more ways than a few. it’s in Morris, Connecticut, and yes, it is on a really big farm.
so let me tell you how it works.
you buy a “grid”, which is like an 8-foot by 8-foot square, and you (and your friend, if you have friends) hang out in that 8-foot space for the show. there’s a 9-foot gap between your neighbors, so you don’t have to be nearby when they take their shoes off. (see below for their grid) and then here’s the key thing: you watch and listen. that’s it!
the first officially announced band for South Farms is Grace Potter on August 22. but you know what would be really awesome? it’d be a cool move to have a few CT bands play an unofficial soft-opening, you know, just to test the systems ahead of time. what do you think? wait, who said “Jelani Sei and Crag Mask”? was that you? no? who said that?
here’s a look at the grid system:
