Madison Loses Yet Another Live Music Venue
Following the closure of Scatz and the Annex, another long-standing live music venue has closed its doors.
Today, the Dry Bean shut its doors. Although the venue was located on Verona Road, surrounded by Furniture stores and other commercial concerns, it drew steadily.
The Dry Bean was first opened as an answer to rthe country music line-dancing craze in the 80’s. Though I can’t recall the specific year, I distinctly remember going there and dancing in reverse to the country dance circle. I believe we were going clockwise and were supposed to go counter. We were promptly dismissed from the venue for disrupting such an awesome good time.
As the line-dance craze went the way of the mullet (oh…I guess some people must still line dance), the venue adapted to include other types of music, eventually becoming a rock venue for the most part. Cover bands drew well as they do outside of the downtown area.
Citing difficult economic times, the Dry Bean finally shut their doors today. It’s a sad indicator of the beating live music has taken across the board. If you read the trades, you have seen that even major artists are having difficulty selling. Though some of that can be attributed to ridiculous prices and retail methodologies, there is little doubt that live music has taken a hit, particularly at the local level.