The hardcore show that finally broke Billy Plona was January 31, the third iteration of Judgement Day, an eight-hour metal fest Brothers Lounge hosted last Saturday. Playing to a packed concert hall were By My Blood, Curbed and Dissection of Spirit.
Plona was pleased with the turnout– Judgement Day sold out. What worried him instead was the toll on the venue that he’d taken over managing just last July.
“Three microphones were slammed and destroyed,” Plona told Scene. “The women’s restroom was covered in blood because some girl got kicked in the face. It was chaos—chips in the walls, bartenders leaving, regulars saying they’re never coming back.”
This week, Plona and his team decided to cancel all upcoming hardcore and punk shows—events he feared might attract similar crowds, citing worries about holes in walls, graffiti in the bathrooms and damage to backline equipment.
Beginning in February, he wrote in an email to bands on Monday, “Brothers Lounge will be changing music genres by going back to its origins as a blues, jazz and tribute/cover band venue.”
“As a result,” he added, “we are limiting hardcore and punk groups from any future shows.”
Those “future” shows, bands soon learned, were now canceled, leaving many in a lurch with little to no notice for rebooking.
But Brothers will be returning to its legacy. It’s one of Cleveland’s storied blues venues, having hosted legends like B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Robert Lockwood Jr. since opening on Detroit Avenue in the late 1950s. And it will be doing it as a tenuous time for local stsages. Only one in four of Cleveland’s independent music venues, a recent report found, turned a profit last year. Brothers Lounge included, Plona said.
When the venue reopened in 2022, owner Chris Riemenscheider, who bought the building in the early aughts, had already sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into a second round of renovations, from remodeling the wine bar to building out a swanky Walt’s Room upstairs.
Reopening didn’t mean a pre-pandemic bounce-back. Plona said the venue’s former booker believed an open-minded approach to booking was key to returning to profitability.
“We felt we had to tap into that younger crowd,” Plona said. “We had regulars saying, ‘I didn’t even know you guys were open again.’ Since then, it’s been an uphill climb to get people back.”
And back they came.
For some of them, now back they go. Elsewhere.
Francesco Luke, a member of the post-hardcore group Imperil, said he felt betrayed after receiving Plona’s email this week—especially after a damage-free show last December. All of Imperil’s upcoming dates, including one planned for February 28, were suddenly erased.
“It’s one thing to say, ‘We’re not going to book these shows anymore,’” he told Scene by phone. “But it’s another to just cancel them outright.”
But he’ll be back, right?
“I think the damage has been done,” Luke said. “It’s hard to erase that kind of impression.”
Though it’s unlikely Brothers will reverse course, Plona urged hardcore bands not to take the decision personally.
“Ninety-nine percent of those bands and their crowds are good people,” he said. “But there are just more bad actors in that particular crowd.”
“It’s damned if you do,” he added, “damned if you don’t.”
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