End of an era: Cafe Metro to close

For more info on Cafe Metropolis, visit www.cafemetropolis.com.

Cafe Metropolis, an all-ages venue in Wilkes-Barre that provided a home for nationally touring alternative rock acts, a launching pad for many local bands that have gone onto more widespread prominence and a gathering place for a mostly younger crowd of fans, will close at the end of September.

“The landlord is renovating the building, and we don’t really have the resources to move to another location,” said the venue’s manager, Kevin Dougherty, adding “there’s no real villain behind our closing down.”

Cafe Metro, as it came to be known over the years, launched in 1996 in the now-decaying Hotel Sterling before moving in the late ’90s to its current location on South Main Street with its entrance on Livingston Lane. Over the years, it has hosted bands such as Coheed & Cambria, Fall Out Boy, Mastodon and Gym Class Heroes.

But it is shows at Metro by bands like The Menzingers, Tigers Jaw, Title Fight, Motionless In White, An Albatross and The Sw!ms — all groups either based in Northeastern Pa. or formerly based here — that Dougherty remembers most fondly.

“I don’t want to take credit for (those band’s ascensions),” Dougherty said, but noted that Title Fight is currently touring Japan, for example. Meanwhile The Menzingers, another frequent performer at Metro, formerly based in Scranton and now working out of Philadelphia, will start a tour with The Gaslight Anthem later this week.

As Metro’s run comes to an end this month, the venue has booked some of those bands to help close the book on the venue, with Title Fight (Sept. 11) and Tigers Jaw, along with Kite Party, Strand Of Oaks, These Elk Forever and Three Man Cannon (Sept. 17) all slated to perform in the next few weeks. And on Saturday, Sept. 18, Metro will open its doors for its last-ever show, headlined by Motionless In White and also featuring Goodbye Soundscape, Life To Come and Machine Arms.

Metro’s demise marks the end of an era of the NEPA all-ages scene, one that has taken some hits in the past few years, including the 2008 closing of Test Pattern in Scranton. Over the past few years, all-ages rooms like Backstage Enterprises in Kingston and Club Jam in Pittston have come and gone. Eleanor Rigby’s in Jermyn has emerged as a leader on the all-ages front, booking not only hardcore and punk bands attractive to younger fans but also classic rock and cover bands appealing to a traditionally older audience. Rigby’s also sells alcohol, which helps the venue expand beyond the usual punk/hardcore crowd.

“I think it’s hard, it’s always gonna be hard” to operate an all-ages venue, Dougherty said. “Good luck to anybody that thinks they can do this and have it be a viable economic plan,” especially if you want to “do something good,” he said.

Dougherty noted with a hint of disbelief and humor that the Jonas Brothers were scheduled to play at Metro in 2006, but the show was canceled. The Wikipedia entry of Australian band The Veronicas lists Feb. 21, 2006, as a previous Veronicas tour date, but the show never happened. That tour featured the Jonas Brothers as an opening act.

During Cafe Metropolis’ tenure as the dean of the area all-ages market, a lot has changed in the music business and in culture overall. And until the end of this month, the venue played was an important and constant role in the lives of many people in the region.

“I think when we first opened, we were on the cusp of this whole revolution with social networking,” said Dougherty. “When we opened, kids didn’t have any way of staying in touch, so I think places like the Cafe might’ve been more important.”

w