Welcome to the start of our venue venture around Maine. Join Kyle Lamont, your host, as she explores the music scene of Portland starting at the heart of it all: State Theater. We’ll meet up with long time talent buyer and general manager, Lauren Wayne AKA "Portland's Musical High Priestess" for a daytime tour of the venue to hear about the interconnectedness of Portland's concert community, the challenges and victories of managing a renowned venue including its unique architecture, art deco influences, and the excitement of hosting acclaimed acts like My Morning Jacket. Get insider tales of technical hurdles and the buzz of sold-out shows and uncover the theater's intriguing history, from its roots as a movie house to its diverse transformations, including a surprising stint as a 1970s porn theater. Stay tuned for more Concert Cast rockumentaries where music, travel, and culture intersect.
The venue venture around Maine begins in Portland at State Theater. Lamont meets with Lauren Wayne AKA "Portland's Musical High Priestess" to learn about all the good places to stop while visiting the city and then take a tour of State to learn some of its history and hear how Lauren and her team keep the talent flowing and the concert-goers happy.
###Notes and Links
Lauren Wayne of State Theater - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ydwEz1fbwY
State Theater - https://www.statetheatreportland.com/
Press Hotel - https://presshotel.com
Eastland Hotel - https://www.thetopoftheeast.com/
Inn at Saint John - https://www.innatstjohn.com/
Hot Suppa - http://hotsuppa.com/
Eventide Oyster Company - http://www.eventideoysterco.com/
Novare Res - https://novareresbiercafe.com/
Port City Music Hall - https://www.portcitymusichall.com/
Empire - http://portlandempire.com/
Space Gallery - http://www.space538.org/
Gillian Walsh - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/14/arts/dance/gillian-walsh-moon-fate-sin.html
Courtney Barnett - https://courtneybarnett.com.au/
Bowery Presents - https://www.bowerypresents.com/
Tour the State Theater - https://www.statetheatreportland.com/photos/
My Morning Jacket - https://mymorningjacket.com
Malabar the Magnificent - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018528/
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AND to CALE PARKS and DIXXY. for Music!
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Concert Cast is a production of Good To Go Studios, created by Kyle Lamont and Made in Downeast, Maine.
Announcer: At a concert while swirling among shared connections, you can let go and weightlessly ride the moment. Time feels suspended, which can also be said about travel. By experiencing different cities sensations are heightened, and the energy exchange between a traveler and a new place is similar to that of a band and a fan. It's kinetic, ever-giving and inspiring. For Kyle Lamont, a road trip and music journalist, visiting venues across the country is a vehicle to exploration. And this podcast is an audio atlas filled with music maps, conversations, and discoveries. Concert culture is travel-centric and every venue has a voice. So let us go and listen. Concert Cast the Podcast is brought to you by MAVEN. High class leather and motorcycle seats from the woods of Downeast Maine. Handcrafted and shipped worldwide mavenseats.com for custom creations.
Kyle: I'm on cruise control when I cross the state line. I crank up the tunes and replay a memory. They always seem to rush in when I come home. I'm Kyle Lamont and welcome to Maine.
There is an immediate sense of ease when you arrive. You can loosen your grip on the wheel. And no matter what the season is, roll the windows down to take in the pine-laden perfume. I've lost count of the amount of times I've made this drive. But for some reason, coming home always feels fresh. I hail from a small town on the coast called Sullivan, in a region known as Downeast. I'm excited to bring you home in chapter three of this four part series, but to gain a full spectrum on Maine's live music scene, we're starting our venue venture in Portland.
Maine used to be an afterthought for bands, but now that touring is financially driving the music business, this state is a premier destination.
Lauren Wayne: The work that we've done over the past eight years has put us on enough of the agents and band radars that, you know, sometimes we're automatically included in routing. So they're like, we know we want to play the State.
Kyle: That's Lauren Wayne. She's the head talent buyer and general manager of State Theater in Portland. And I am very amped to be meeting up with her. For weekend warriors staying in Portland, a few lodging and dining suggestions: stay at the Press Hotel. The 9 year old brick building has been transformed from an old newspaper house into a modern hotel where the design is a nod to the old journalism days. Plus, there's a wicked cool bar. For the best view of Portland, head to the Eastland Hotel and for some quirky character, then stay the night at Inn at St. John. And for food, wow, where to begin? Bon Appetit magazine just named Portland the 2018 restaurant city of the Year. So I think that says it all. But my personal faves would have to be Hot Suppa for breakfast, Eventide for dinner, and Novare Res Bier Café for the late night vibes.
Lauren Wayne: I mean, isn't that like, besides family, isn't that what's important in life? Music, food and beer? Those are my priorities.
Kyle: And that, my friends, should basically be Portland's platform for public office. For any city's public office. Lauren for mayor! (laughs)
And on one block alone, you can find four different music venues. On Congress Street, between Park and Center, is Port City Music Hall, which is State Theater's development room, Empire, a bohemian venue with Chinese Food, and Space Gallery, a contemporary spot for New Age expression.
Lauren Wayne: We're all connected and thank goodness, because without the smaller clubs, too, you know, we wouldn't be as busy. But, you know, the local bands would have not a lot of other places to play, and that's how you stay relevant. You know, you're seen as alive and your community's connected. And all these younger bands are seeing the older bands play around. And that's what they want to do. And it's inspiring. So it's good. It's great.
Kyle: I've seen so many concerts here. So hanging out with Lauren Wayne, a chick who's been described as Portland's musical high priestess is a bit surreal.
Test, test, test.
So I'm a little nervous cause you are so badass. And to talk to you is a pinnacle right now. So thank you.
That, and we're starting the interview on the stage. The stage people, the very same stage where countless toe taps and musical jigs have happened. Now we're bumbling, podcasters stand.
Well, I'm noticing to this floor it feels newish…
Lauren Wayne: It's eight years old, but we also raise the stage 18 inches, which is a huge job.
Kyle: It's so silly to think of this stage.
Lauren Wayne: It's amazing. I mean, Gillian was just the other night, did a little thing with David onstage and like, sounds awesome.
Kyle: There are no shows tonight. So things are quite quiet, a rarity because her concert calendar is always stacked. Later this week, Courtney Barnett and her indie punk rock crew, all the way from Australia will be loading in. An event which has been described as a controlled tornado.
Lauren Wayne: Our production crew are the very first people that a band meets when they come in and load in at our venue. And we have a very challenging load-in situation. Our alley, where we load in, is on one of the busiest streets in Portland.
So if we have a truck or a semi that needs the back in the alley, we have to shut the entire street down so that can take up to 15 minutes depending on the skill of the truck driver.
I mean, it's a sight. And then, you know, you got all the people pissed off because you shut down the road. But that is literally the only way we can get trucks, as we call it, trucks in the hole. It's amazing to see them do what they do.
Kyle: It's also cool to note that State Theater is the place where bands iron out their technical kinks before heading out on national tours.
Lauren Wayne: Because if a band starts here, usually on their tour, they'll need a few days to kind of get their tour together to see how their production works. And even if it's just like, all right, we don't know how to pack our trucks with our production. So they'll come here and they'll work that out, which is great for us. We usually get a show out of it.
Kyle: Wayne's love for live music started in high school when she saw the Rolling Stones in Minneapolis.
Lauren Wayne: We were psyched and that was the Rolling Stones, and that was my very, very first like in-the-moment experience when I was like, this is it, like, this is I want to do something in this field. I don't know what it is yet. But then like throughout college and even after college, it was just like: music, music, music. Live shows specifically.
Kyle: And Wayne got her start working for the Don Law Company by booking bands at the Big Easy, which used to be on Market Street.
Lauren Wayne: I'm just going to dabble in some talent buying. You know, I'm going to book some bands at the Big Easy, just see how that goes. I booked like all #@$*#@* Windish bands. They're all my favorite bands. They basically 80 percent of the shows, there's like 30 people or less. But they were like, really what I thought, like were the coolest bands ever. Like, I had The Decemberists there and a bunch and like Badly Drawn Boy and Rachael Yamagata, and Animal Collective. I mean, but they were not well attended. You know, some of them were, but some of them were not. And that's when I realized like, oh, this business is not about booking just your favorite artists. You know, you have to figure out what the market wants and what the market can take and not to oversaturate and like pick the right ticket price. And I learned that pretty quickly.
Kyle: Wayne's infectious laugh and love for the community, coupled with great communication skills, is what makes her a remarkable GM. But in the business of talent buying. She's a badass broker.
You must really come to the table because what you've done here is put State Theater, put Portland on America's music map.
Lauren Wayne: Negotiating is something I do like to do. Definitely had some help. Big help from the Bowery, which is one of our parent companies. And Alex Crullers in Vermont or our other owner. Whether you're, you know, negotiating with an agent or you're negotiating with your staff or you're, you know, third party vendors or your security, it's just it's all getting along.
In the end, don't you want to get along and everyone makes money.
Kyle: And she's striving constantly to sell out the State. Booking Lord Huron, a band who's played the State before, is a prime example.
Lauren Wayne: Three, four months ago, I was looking at their schedule like there's a hole there schedule and they didn't include the State. So I reached out. I sent an offer. Agent was like, yeah, let's do it again. And they came back with their third time and they've sold out a few weeks ago in advance. So it's like that %&$# right there is why we do what we do. It's like the best part of the business is seeing an artist and having a hand in their development in like the city that you love. Like twice they came, it was a great show. They did fine. Third time they come in. Boom, sold out. It's awesome. It just totally reaffirms why I do what I do.
Kyle: Let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll hear how the State came to be, including an epic reopening night.
Lauren Wayne: The fire alarm goes off. Yeah, our very first show, we had a few technical glitches that we had…
Kyle: Stay tuned.
[soft synth music]
Kyle: The decor of the State is what I would call kitschy. It gleans decades of different owners with different ideas of design. Some sections it feels very art deco-y. Other sections mediæval; fluffy clouds and Italian trees. Wow, I'm in Venice all of a sudden. Okay. Now there's Spanish tile over here. It's just a hodgepodge, but it works.
Lauren Wayne: The plaster-work that you see like the angels and the the ornate like decoration going around the windows and then the organ. So they have the Wurlitzer in here, which has actually been restored, but we just can't fit it back in. All that's original. But the paintings and the murals in the front are all stuff that was done in the 90s through the non-profit when they were like, hey, any artists out there wanna come in, do a mural with people who are naked or wearing underwear. So that's unusual, but it's kind of fun right now.
Kyle: Lauren and I are exiting stage, right, and wandering around the venue towards the lobby, marveling at some other quirky tales.
Lauren Wayne: So you get the front of house and then you go right into the main auditorium. The wrought iron railings are all original, the Romeo and Juliet balcony.
There are some original things in here that make no sense for our business today, but we're just like, whatever, we're gonna keep them.
Kyle: Fabulous cloud's going on here in something.
Lauren Wayne: Something, it's on the list.
Kyle: I'm not giving you shit. I love it. I think it's so kooky. It works.
Lauren Wayne: It's insane. But I think for the most part, patrons are thinking about how fast they can get to the front of the stage.
Kyle: State opened in 1929 as a theater and it's worn a lot of different hats over the decades.
Lauren Wayne: They used to do a lot of variety acts here. It's opened as a movie house. It was the largest screen, I think it still is the largest movie screen in Maine. And then they used to do theatrical plays. They did broadcasts of kids TV shows here and radio shows. It's pretty cool. Yeah. John Wayne was here once. He stayed at the Eastland and then they just had to do a lot of different kinds of things because all that, you know, all that stuff kind of died out.
Kyle: As we walk around, a colorful mural catches my eye, a nod to yet another type of show that popped up during states history. The painting reads Malabar the Magnificent. It's of a man sporting a leotard. He has a handlebar mustache and is wrangling two white horses.
So that guy Malabar would be on stage with horses or what do you think?
Lauren Wayne: They would do a lot of weird things in this venue. And I'm not positive how they got in and out, but they did it.
Kyle: In the 70s, the State got seedy.
Lauren Wayne: It was a porn theater in the 70s and I think 80s.
Old-timey Radio Announcer: Pornography and sexual deviation have always been with mankind.
Kyle: Have you uncovered any pictures or like actual like people that can validate that?
Lauren Wayne: Persons know it is has been cleaned up. No, I mean, I wasn't around, but, but word on the street that it was, the whole block was just, you know, rundown and not the block that it is today.
Kyle: Fast forward to the 90s when it was really rough.
Lauren Wayne: It was run as a non-profit and a dinner theater. And I don't know how much experience you have with nonprofits and dinner theaters, but when you mix the two, it's probably not the most ideal situation for running a profitable music venue.
Kyle: They were able to book some big names, but the building was a hot mess.
And like part of the ceiling fell down on someone.
Lauren Wayne: That was at Sarah McLaughlin.
Kyle: It stumbled through those years and it finally got some relief in the form of a Midas touch from the kings of music venues. Alex Crothers and Barry Presents signed a long term lease in 2010 and immediately hired Wayne to run the company. Then in 2015, Alex Crothers purchased the building with Redstone Properties.
Lauren Wayne: I signed on with the company in May or June of 2010 and they were like, all right. Our opening night is October 15th. Basically, here's your contractor, here's your GC work with them to open the venue by then.
I was like, %$^%#^, Because I'd never done anything like that. I you know, I was a tele-buyer and a marketing director. So I learned a lot and I learned it really quickly over the next couple of months.
Kyle: So then it's renovated. It's ready to rock. You have your first show.
Lauren Wayne: The fire alarm goes off. Yeah, our very first show, My Morning Jacket, accidentally set the fire alarm off when they were teching. So they've been rehearsing. So that was fun. And then it actually happened during the show. So we had to dump the building and then, but it was fine, there was nothing wrong. It was just people, too many smokers in the bathroom. So we dumped and then we got everybody back in. We had a great show. It happens.
Stop smoking or do it in your own home.
Kyle: It's like almost there is a good blessing of the legacy that you'll have here is pretty cool.
Lauren Wayne: We made it. We got it to happen. It was like one of the best weekends of my life.
Kyle: And the momentum has only been gaining for her despite the stressful nature of the job.
Lauren Wayne: You're responsible for everyone's fun. No biggie. No biggie. But that's the best part of the business. Because then you get to come here and see everyone having fun and you're like, Dude, this is it. This is music. This is like the feeling of community in that sense that you get being altogether like enjoying this %#$%@# like experience together. Excuse my language again. I can't help it.
I swear…
Kyle: While in the balcony, we gush over our mutual love for being up so high.
Feels like sometimes are the cool kids, you know, like back on a school bus vibe.
Lauren Wayne: That's funny. One of my favorite place to see a show when no one knows I'm here is actually right up there because it's such a good view and not like I'm spying on people, but I'm just kind of like looking around, making sure everybody's cool.
Kyle: It's one of the coolest sightlines of any venue I've been to because it's so expansive. You know, there's nothing blocking it.
Lauren Wayne: Yeah, well, I think that's the unique feature of this whole venue because it was built so long ago that it's like you can. Yeah. You can get nineteen hundred people in here. But it still feels so intimate because it's more wide than it is long. It's great. It's awesome. And then like there's not a bad place to see a show here.
Kyle: I agree 100 percent. There's not a bad seat in the House, although I would like to stand in the Romeo and Juliet balcony. And see what? See what?
Lauren Wayne: Those are fake.
Kyle: Imposter!
Lauren Wayne: I can't even believe it.
Kyle: That would be pretty dope, though. Like it's like opera style seating. I just have a couple of chairs over there.
Lauren Wayne: We could get there. We would, but we can't even get there. It's just the facade.
Kyle: We meander back to the stage. And our time with Lauren Wayne is coming to a close. But before I switch the mic off, I make sure to ask her my favorite question:
How would you describe like when you are alone in this venue and it's quiet and you can just like absorb everything?
Lauren Wayne: I'm never really alone because it's haunted, so I sit. No, it's it's definitely a surreal feeling being in here alone. I actually leave a lot through the venue at night and being the only one walking through. It's it's surreal. It's like a pretty awesome feeling to know that, yeah, it's so quiet now, but, you know, 16 hours you're gonna have nineteen hundred screaming fans in here listening to some pretty rad music.
That's good.
But I'd I'd much rather not be alone in the theater then alone because that means if I'm alone, I'm doing something wrong.
Kyle: Guys? Hello?
Lauren Wayne: I sold one ticket. Awesome.
Announcer: Type in concertcastthepodcast.com to build your own music-centric itinerary, including great coffee shops, bars, boutiques and daytime activities. It's an absolute must to take a ferry to Peaks Island.
Next episode, we cruise up the coast of Belfast where we'll meet up with the drummer of Phish at his radio show before checking out the All Roads Music Festival, which turns historic buildings into venues for the night. This has been a Good to Go Studios production created by Kyle Lamont and special thanks to Lauren Wayne and State Theater. Mark Tekushan is our resident mastermind and thank you to Maven, Pepper Little Abbey Rock, Jessiman Corey Chandler Amy, Charlie Keely Rose and Cara Romano. CALE PARKS and DIXXY for Music mastered by Portland Pod Maine's first podcasting studio located in South Portland. And thank you for listening.