Music Venue "Box Awesome" to Close

By Cory Kibler with notes from Alexis Abel

On June 30th, 2009, Box Awesome will hold its last show.  There won’t be a set cover charge; attendees are invited to pay whatever they like, and all of the money will go to the bands.  Local acts Plack Blague, Triggertown and Somasphere will rock out for the crowd.  People will dance, smile, sing along, and party their heart out.

Then, on July 6th, the Box Awesome will close its doors to the public, its future yet to be determined.

A Brief History

While it is currently home to Box Awesome, the building at 815 “O” Street has been many things.   Within the last eight years alone, it has transformed three times and will soon begin yet another chapter in its existence.

(Full disclosure: I am not just a journalist writing about yet another music venue closing.  I am also someone who has played at Box Awesome numerous times, and attended a plethora of shows there.  It is my goal to paint as accurate a picture as possible, but I must admit upfront that the untimely end of Box Awesome has affected me in a very direct way.)

When I first came to Nebraska for college in 2000 and subsequently started playing around town with bands in 2002, the building at 815 “O” was the Haymarket Hideaway.   I remember the first time I saw the club; it was across the street from Knickerbockers, another club I’d been to many times, except that the Haymarket Hideaway was under the “O” Street viaduct and had a totally unique vibe.  It was a little sketchier, and less accessible.  The stage wasn’t where it is now, broadly set against the long wall on the East side of the building; instead, it was set against the narrow front of the club, up against the window, and the top of a steep staircase.

The band that I was in at the time played there on a few occasions, and it was not an unpleasant experience.  But as is often the case with local bars and clubs, it did not last long.  The Haymarket Hideaway closed its doors, and was replaced by the Chatterbox, a new bar and venue.  This time, the bar more aggressively focused itself on local music.  Whereas the Haymarket Hideaway was a bar that sometimes had bands play, the Chatterbox was primarily a music venue that also served drinks and had a pool table.

The Chatterbox bar slowly developed into one of the mainstays of the local music scene.  In doing so, it joined the ranks of venues like The Zoo Bar, Duffy’s Tavern and Knickerbockers, all of which were (and still are) well-established downtown music venues.   Gradually, it earned respect as a legitimate venue, hosting every kind of band imaginable.

In May of 2007, The Chatterbox closed its doors, but former Chatterbox employee Jeremiah Moore took over the building’s lease, and reopened it as "Box Awesome".  This was no small feat; it required gutting the insides of the building, and swapping the bar area with the stage.  Before, playing the venue was like playing at the end of a very long hallway.  Now, it had become a much more user-friendly stage, with better sound, better visibility, and a more personally invested staff, which made a world of difference.

As Box Awesome, the club attracted a wide variety of local acts and became a regular pit-stop for touring acts.  Through hard work, the venue became the core of a new community in Lincoln.  Whereas past generations of local music had a kind of ownership of the Zoo Bar or Duffy’s, Box Awesome became the home base for something new and exciting.

The Box held shows almost every night, keeping its doors open on Sunday and Monday when most other clubs are closed.  Rather than risk missing out on developing talent, they gave young new bands a chance.  As more and more bands wanted to play the Box, they attempted to satisfy demands by using the basement of their club to hold shows as well.  What started as a small relatively unknown business blossomed into “the place to play” in Lincoln.  Recently, the venue hosted Cursive, a wildly popular act from Omaha.  They probably could have sold more tickets and more alcohol at the higher-capacity Bourbon Theatre, but Cursive specifically insisted on playing Box Awesome.

This sense of community at the Box happened organically.  “If you were to try and plan it, your motives wouldn’t be pure,” said Jeremy Buckley, current booker/promoter for Box Awesome.  But Buckley maintains a sense of humility regarding the love and support that has developed for the venue. In his eyes, the Box was “the catalyst, not the cause” of the ever-growing Lincoln music scene.  Still, one has to wonder whether, after the Tuesday, June 30th show, our music scene will suffer a serious loss.  At this point in time, it’s anyone’s guess what the ramifications of the Box’s closure will be.

This premature closure was not planned.  The short story is that the building owners accused Box Awesome of paying their rent late, and so the tenants at 815 “O” Street were asked to leave.  There’s been a fair amount of speculation surrounding the legal situation causing Box Awesome to vacate its current building, but suffice to say that whatever the full story is, the Box will be closing for certain (at least for a while).

What’s Next

In 2009, the Moores took over the old State Theatre, renovating and renaming it the Bourbon Theatre.  It features an updated sound system, a much larger capacity, a wide selection of bourbon, and a whole new mentality.

However, the Bourbon’s goal is not to fill the void that the closing of Box Awesome will create.  The Bourbon is an entirely different animal.  Rather than catering mostly to local bands with relatively smaller draws, the Bourbon will host a wider variety of popular touring and local artists, and will be used solely for larger shows.

Currently, Jeremiah and company’s plan is to re-open some version of Box Awesome around the beginning of next year.  Time will tell whether the community that grew to call Box Awesome “home” will settle comfortably into the yet-to-be-determined new location, but Buckley is optimistic, saying that they will “keep the same grassroots mentality and fun” that has worked so well for them thus far. 

This grassroots mentality, combined with the overwhelming sense of communal support, has been astounding.  One might expect other venues to be apathetic about the competition’s demise, if not a little relieved.  This couldn’t be further from the truth.  Duffy’s Tavern held a few benefit shows in order to aid Box Awesome with their legal costs, and local scene folks organized a rummage sale with all proceeds going to help out as well.  The efforts from the benefit shows and the rummage sale raised about half of Box Awesome’s legal fees.

And this sense of community is reciprocated.  When asked about what his hopes were while the future of the venue is being decided, Buckley said that his main wish is that the Box’s absence “builds stronger shows for a while” at other local venues.  These warm sentiments may be surprising, but they are refreshing.  If there’s one lesson the folks at Box Awesome have learned, it’s to have the right kind of attitude.  “You don't need to be competitive to succeed.  No one place could exist on its own.”

It is still up in the air whether or not the folks behind Box Awesome will be able to recapture that glowing sense of community in their future endeavors, but one thing is for certain: they’ve got a lot of people in their corner, cheering them on.