Lexington, KY - A year and two months after closing to make way for the demolition of the CentrePointe block, Buster's will be reopening and redefined. And as a result, Lexington is finally getting the large-scale live music venue many have longed for.
Buster's Billiards and Backroom will open this August in the Distillery District's Old Tarr Distillery. The design, by architect and interior designer Rebecca Burnworth, sets aside one third of the floor plan to recreate Buster's in the style that was known and loved by loyal patrons of its previous spot on the southwest corner of Main and Upper, with the remaining two-thirds, the "Backroom," to become a 1,000-plus capacity rock hall, featuring all the amenities required to attract top touring bands and accommodate the crowds they are expected to draw.
"(We looked at) all the studies that had been going on as far as what does Lexington need, how can we keep our young professionals here, how can we make our city more vibrant? And one of the things that kept coming up again and again was we need more music," said Jessica Case, who along with her husband, Clark, bought Buster's in the waning days of its Main Street location. "In the Lexington scene, the hole was the mid-size music venue because you've got Ö nothing in between The Dame and say, Rupp Arena, or The Dame and the Singletary Center, the larger venues."
The couple, both 31 and attorneys in their own law firm of Case and Case LLP, had toyed with the idea of reopening Buster's at a different location in downtown Lexington. But after an invitation from Distillery District developer Barry McNees to check out Old Tarr on Manchester Street, their concept evolved, blending a regular bar and a rock hall and creating a missing link in the chain of mid-sized music venues that agents for up-and-coming national acts look for as they plot the routing of their touring clients - bands currently bypassing Lexington to play Louisville's Headliners and Cincinnati's Bogart's.
"This really fit that niche and I think it will really help to draw acts to Lexington, and then, with the trickle down effect, help the music scene as a whole," she said. The bar and billiards area will operate separately from the music venue, so it will be open like any other bar in town, whether there is a show in back or not. The front room will also be available to those without tickets to shows in the Backroom for those who just want to take in the traditional Buster's experience - though this incarnation of Buster's will have one thing that the old one didn't: a liquor license.
"That was primarily because (of) Jessica," Clark Case said. "I used to have to restrain her from trying to smuggle wine into the old Buster's."
Though the features of the new Buster's will necessarily differ from its original form, as people who liked the bar enough to buy it when it was shutting down due to demolition, the couple was keenly aware of the essence that made Buster's Buster's.
"It's a bar that became almost an institution in downtown Lexington to a lot of people. It has a lot of fans; we've been fans for years. And there are so many folks that just hated to see Buster's go, and we were among them. And that's kind of how we ended up in the mix," he said. "It was really important to us that Buster's reopen in some form. The venue part of it kind of came along as a function of us trying to find a location for Buster's."
The front will offer many of the same fixtures as the original Buster's: the same pool tables, jukebox and even the concrete doberman that has become the new bar's mascot and logo.
Buster's evolution from a beer-only downtown dive bar, to a full-service bar and concert hall was borne out of the Cases' close relationship with each other.
"That's the plus of being partners," Jessica Case said. "You know you don't go to a business meeting and walk out 30 minutes later having talked about a few things; we're on each other all day every day.
"We took a trip down to Knoxville and visited the folks that run the Valarium there. And then again hit up Asheville and the Orange Peel there. And picked their brains for hours about the ups and downs Ö the music contracts and just every aspect of the business."
The Cases are not just looking to make Buster's Backroom a crowd pleaser. An important lesson learned while meeting with the owners of the Orange Peel was the value of making the venue attractive to touring bands. The design accommodates green rooms, a place to shower, craft services - the works - intended to provide some comfort to road-worn band members. Also, the Cases understand what is truly important to bands: sounding and looking good. So a topnotch sound system and stage lighting will be installed.
The crowd capacity of The Backroom, 1,000, is key in a formula for attracting high-level talent while maintaining affordable ticket prices.
To help ink the type of acts that play the Orange Peel, Bogart's and similar halls in the region, the Cases have enlisted the help of their friend John Bodine, a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University's music management program, to serve as Buster's booker.
"This guy knows what he is doing," Jessica Case said. "That was the one hang up for us because we don't have the experience with booking bands and attracting them. To have somebody that knew how to do that and has the experience was key."
Buster's Backroom will also open its doors for smaller regional acts and local bands to play. Burnworth's design includes a curtaining system that makes it possible to reduce the size of the cavernous room, making the venue cozier for smaller shows and avoiding the loss of that essential, organic band-crowd magic that can dissipate in empty space.
"Not every act is going to sell out, and so sometimes a band comes in and it might be a great band that has 250 die-hard fans that love to get to see them in LexingtonÖ (and it looks like) nobody came out to support them. They're going to hate LexingtonÖ And it just kills energy," Clark Case said.
This way, he said, Buster's can host some of Lexington's more popular local bands that routinely pull a crowd of around 400 and still keep a hard-driving atmosphere rather than having a few hundred in a large room look and feel like a small smattering of fans. They are also working to make the Backroom accessible to younger fans that are unable to get into shows at traditional bars. The plan is to allow those 18 and up to attend the concerts.
The Cases take possession of Old Tarr on May 17 and expect fit up to take around three months before they can open.