THE EARLY SHOW
For financial, civic and even artistic reasons, more Columbus bar bands are playing happy hour these days
BY KITTY MCCONNELL — THE OTHER PAPER / DECEMBER 13, 2007

It’s the stuff local music legends are made of: Jesse Henry, a member of the Columbus bands the Spikedrivers and the Royal Tycoons, made a pilgrimage to Texas at the height of the great Austin Music Rush of the past few years. While there, he struck on a golden concept and, about a year ago, he returned to his hometown to share his idea with the rest of the Columbus bar scene.

It was simple: What if a band performed not late into the night, but early in the evening? No longer would nine-to-fivers be doomed to happy hours without entertainment, nor would they miss their favorite acts for fear of breaking their curfews.

With the help of the Rumba Café, which was then a recently opened bar and rock venue, the live-music happy hour concept took root in Columbus.

With a year of early shows now under Rumba’s belt, these performances have obviously found a permanent home at the north campus bar. But they’ve also been embraced, although more sporadically, at other establishments like Oldfield’s on High and Byrne’s Pub—both of which have begun to book live bands for the happy-hour crowd.

It’s a trend that, as Rumba owner Mark Henderson puts it, has “caught on like gangbusters” and shows no signs of slowing anytime soon.

“With (the model) we’ve built,” added Todd Dugan, Rumba’s manager and booking agent, “there’s not a band that couldn’t work.”

The concept, as practiced several times weekly at the Rumba, is simple. Rather than booking two or three bands for a show beginning after 9 p.m. and running until last call (standard practice for Columbus’s live music venues), a bar spreads out the number of acts more loosely over the course of a night, booking perhaps two separate shows, with one band playing a set from 6-9 p.m. for the after-work crowd and a second band scheduled for the more conventional, later time slot.

“The problem with the city is that it’s known for its late shows,” said Dugan, noting the initial difficulties his bar met in trying to sell the concept to a crowd of music fans in the habit of turning out well after midnight to hear their favorite bands.

However, after a slow start, happy hour gigs at the Rumba now meet and occasionally exceed the attendance of its later performances. At first, the Royal Tycoons took on the majority of the early time slots to keep Rumba’s slate filled. But as the shows met with enthusiasm from music fans and bar patrons alike, the concept gained momentum with more and more local bands getting in on the act.

By last September, the one-year anniversary of the Rumba Café, as if to indicate that the shows were officially here to stay, songwriter Happy Chichester of Howlin’ Maggie and RC Mob fame set up a residency, of sorts, playing regular 6-9 p.m. sets every Friday, which were quite well-attended.

But bringing in more customers is only one thing in the early shows’ favor. They also give musicians the opportunity to switch up their styles a bit—in the case of Henry’s bands, to play mellower sets that wouldn’t work in front of a crowd of late-night drinkers.

“People getting off work like to come in for a beer, maybe order a pizza and they’re ready to be warmed up,” said Henry, who relishes the added freedom early shows allow him.

As Henry noticed at his shows, a fair amount of the people who attend the happy-hour performances “don’t even know live music,” or, because of their schedules, only attend concerts when they purchase tickets to national touring acts at bigger venues like the LC or Nationwide Arena. When Henry’s guitar students come to one of the all-ages early shows at the Rumba, they often come with parents in tow. Soccer moms and dads who rarely see musicians performing outside of concert halls are now turning out regularly to be entertained in Columbus bars, as they might have done in their younger days.

In other words, the success of the Rumba’s early shows also lies with the aging followers of many of the local bands who play them. In time, these crowds might help bring on the maturation of Columbus’s music scene—giving bars incentive not to snub early risers while giving musicians another shot at paying the rent.

Both of Henry’s bands have happy-hour shows coming up at the Rumba: The Royal Tycoons will play happy hour on Wednesday, while the Spikedrivers go on the next day. Each show will be followed by a 10 p.m. show featuring a different band.