Monday, January 16, 2012

Granada Theatre


     When I think of live music in Texas, certainly Austin, rather than Dallas, is what I think of.  Last week I went to check out the Granada Theatre (www.granadatheater.com), which has been voted the best music venue in Dallas by several sources.  The 1,000-seat venue was built as a movie theatre in the 40’s and still has a beautiful marquee out front which makes it hard to miss.  It is located in the lower Greenville neighborhood of Dallas with a bunch of restaurants and bars nearby.  We went for an Old 97’s show.  We parked in a residential neighborhood about 5 blocks from the Granada, plenty of other people did the same (much to the chagrin of the people living there no doubt).  Walking in, will-call was done with a few laptop setups, I assume because it was a sold out show.   There are a few bars throughout the venue, and there was an area where pizza and tacos were being sold; perfect food for a concert.  We got there are about halfway through the opening band (they were average).  The inside of the venue is beautiful, with murals on the walls and ceiling.  It has certainly kept the flavor of an old movie theatre.  After the opening band a screen came down in the front of the stage.  There were also large screens on either side of the stage.  On one screen, they were projecting info about upcoming shows and on the other they were projecting a live twitter feed (https://twitter.com/#!/GRANADATHEATER).  I thought that was a great way to keep people occupied between bands and engage the audience as well as to stay in touch with the audience in the future.  I think it also helped build a sense of community among those in attendance.  The Old 97’s put on a good show and as a local band, definitely had a captive audience.  Unfortunately, the audience had plenty of “I’ve got a babysitter and I’m getting crazy like I did in college [30 years ago]” crowd which was a little annoying.  Granted one night and one venue doesn’t say a whole lot about the music scene here, but certainly the Granada is doing their fair share to ensure a good music scene in Dallas.     


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