Working It

Amanda Palmer trades the stage in for the bar as she rocks the house at Port City Music Hall.

Meet the man behind the curtain. Standing in a lighting closet filled with dimmer racks, Port City Music Hall owner Rob Evon says, “This is my favorite place to see shows. It’s a great sidestage view, and I can look out at the crowd and watch them react to the music. It’s a great thrill to see 00 people completely engaged with an artist and en oying one of the most memorable concert e periences of their lives.”

Boasting original 1 0s interior design elements such as the winding staircase to the basement inside a 19 0s Moderne fa ade, Port City Music Hall has arrived at 0 Congress like a lu ury cruise liner.

“The louvers were installed circa 1912, largely influenced by oceanic designs emerging from vessels like the Titanic, all the rage at that time.”

Adding to this effect is the sublime decor and detail seen everywhere throughout the interior, giving the room the air of a ballroom that can travel through an evening without a hint of pretension. It’s this marriage of classy, casual, and cool that has local and nationally-touring talent clamoring for a booking.

“Already, we’re considered the top live music venue in Maine,” Evon says. “Performers like Susan Tedeschi, John Scofield, and Reid Genauer from the Assembly of Dust have all told me personally that we’re becoming known as one of the top 10 clubtype rooms in the country.”

In an era where once-vibrant storefronts ga e vacantly onto Portland’s downtown artery, Port City Music Hall’s front windows its story-high “eyes” are wide open. Since opening a year ago, the venue has turned the tides here and created waves rippling throughout the industry even while the State Theatre a few blocks away has gone dark [see “Who idnapped The State Theatre,” December 2009].

Evon and wife Lesley, the venue’s hospitality coordinator, relocated here from ermont in August 200 .

“The idea was solidified over a couple of beers. From 2002 to 200 , I’d watched the routes of bands playing tours through New England, and Portland was falling off the map because there was no place to play.” Inspired, “I spent the better part of 200 courting private capital.”

Scouring city streets as though with a divining rod, “we began looking at vacant

Clockwise: Music lovers converge on Portland’s popular Port City Music Hall as a line of patrons snakes up Congress Street; the Hall’s bar helps fans warm up; a wall of windows overlooking Congress Street makes Portland’s cityscape part of the experience.

spaces, searching from August 200 to March 200 .” Again and again, “we found ourselves coming back to the ‘Stadium’ space, as it was known.”

Not that it was love at first sight. With its desultory window displays, the location had all the charm of forced-march public art. “There was a used furniture business here post- eystone,” Evon says. “A place called The Furniture Barn thought it would be a good idea to paint and acid-etch the storefront windows.”

Talk about horror “The Congress Street half of the building was vacant for 2 years and had become an indoor dump. During demolition, we removed 2 0 cubic yards of unk.”

Aware that clubs’ finances are usually shrouded in smoke and martinis, Evon is candid about his decision-making process all the

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