The Bowery Presents, a concert promoter in New York, has grown significantly since the 1990s, when its partners ran two clubs on the Lower East Side, the Mercury Lounge and the Bowery Ballroom. These days it is a force in the concert business on the East Coast, with dozens of shows throughout New York each week and a network that runs from Maine to Atlanta.
Now the company has planted a flag in New Orleans, with a deal to book events at the Civic Theater, a historic space that reopened in January after a nine-month renovation. So far the Civic has held private events, but on Sept. 27 its public shows start with the comedian Russell Brand, and include the Black Crowes, Steve Earle, the Waterboys and the New Orleans funk band Galactic.
Bryan Bailey, one of the owners of the Civic, said in a statement on Tuesday that that the renovations added up-to-date technology. “The oldest theater in the city is married with the most advanced tech infrastructure for a venue of its size anywhere in the country,†he said. That includes, for example, a “modular flooring system†that allows the space to be changed from theater-style seating “to corporate conference arrangement in minutes,†according to the announcement.
The Civic was opened in 1906, and according to a historian quoted by The Gambit, a New Orleans newspaper, it has been dormant for decades, after last being used as a disco.
