Kirk Avenue Music Hall

At the center of an unlikely convergence of factors, Kirk Ave has got to be one of the best things about living in Roanoke.

When people tell you they saw Bob Dylan in 'a little club' in the East Village, NY: they're talking about rooms like Kirk Ave, but this stage attracts more than just talented up-and-comers. Acts like Jorma Kaukonen, Chris Smither, Cheryl Wheeler, John Gorka --real heavyweights of the folk, alt country, folk rock, and mountain music scenes-- appear here every month.

Acoustically the room is a good combination of live/dead surfaces. Exposed brick walls give the highs plenty of life. The floor is not particularly reverb-y, especially with an audience, making this a great room for music, amplified or otherwise.

They have a deeply symbiotic media partner in 101.5FM The Music Place, whose listeners gratefully find many of the same acts booked into Kirk Ave they've heard on the radio.

And then there's Roanoke itself: full of rail yards and highways, an epicenter of guitar-toting tramps, banjo virtuosi streaming out of every hollow, and folks from all over creation sweating all day so they can pick all night. Where the fiddle vs. violin controversy was settled long ago...repopulated every generation with singers and pickers who ran out of money on their way to Nashville, or got big red neon stars in their eyes and couldn't go...

Amid all of this right now there's a stage, and on it a singer. As unlikely as it all may seem on a little side street in western Virginia, you'll know you're someplace special when the music starts.

So this place is really cool.  I grew up in Radford and was visiting my parents from Chicago (where I currently live) and my Dad thought it'd be a fun bonding experience for him and I to see a show together since music is our thing.  Paul Thorn was playing so he got us tickets.

Places like this are a dime a dozen in the cities where I've lived before (New York, Los Angeles and now Chicago) so it was really cool to see something like this in the SWVA area.  If there are other places like it, I'm not aware of them but I'm glad I was introduced to this place.  

The only thing I thought was odd (but grateful for since I was absolutely exhausted from the 12 hour drive) was that there were chairs set up.  These places are usually SRO and it was weird watching a high energy show sitting down but like I said, I was so glad to be able to sit since that night I felt like a zombie.  Everyone did stand for the last song which gave the overall vibe more energy.  

I really salute whoever brought the idea of this place to life.  If it would've been around when I was in high school, it'd definitely be a place I'd hang out at regularly.  

What was a total bummer about the surrounding area was that it was absolutely DEAD.  We wanted to grab some dinner before the show and the place my Dad wanted to take me (Lucky, or something like that) was CLOSED.  It was Sunday night! The weekend!  

I could be wrong but I thought this was supposed to be a "touristy" area.  If you have all these people in the area attending a show or whatever reason, give them places to spend money!  For an area with so much potential and so many businesses, they should be open on the weekend!!!  Especially with the Hotel Roanoke right across the street!  So many potential customers and there's nowhere for them to spend their money!

That just made absolutely no sense to me.  But whatever.  

I had a great time at this place and really enjoyed the show.  I'm rarely in the area so lord knows when the next time I'll get to come back is but I'm sure my parents will go back.

This hole in the wall music hall opened last fall, and it's done so much to diversify the local music scene. It's just getting started, and it's tiny, but it's exactly what Roanoke needs.

I've seen two shows here - Blueground Undergrass in January and the Nikki Barr Band in March. In both cases, my boyfriend taped the show. In both cases, the venue was extremely accommodating, giving us both a guest pass and helping us out. The operators are friendly and personable, ready to jump into a conversation about music with any patron.

The hall was jam-packed for Blueground Undergrass, a local bluegrass outfit with an apparently big following. It was packed. People were talking, filtering in and out the whole time, which was slightly distracting. I got the impression that lots of people just walked in off the street without playing. However, the sound system was good, and I still got a lot of enjoyment out of the experience.

Seeing the Nikki Bar Band was a complete inverse of my first experience. There were a dozen people at most attending the show, but it was still fun. (Nikki Bar was fantastic - very energetic despite the low attendance).  The sound was a bit loud, though.

One thing that could really improve the venue would be better beer/wine selection. The shows are inexpensive to attend, but their drinks are $4/5 a pop for fancy wine or beer. Not too much, but enough to ensure that I limit my spending to one or two drinks. The size of the venue limits the size of their bar, but a $1/2 beer option would probably double my drink budget for Kirk Ave shows. Would it be so hard to get a few cases of PBR?

All in all, this is a great environment that I'm really grateful Roanoke has. Long live Kirk Ave!