Between 2015 and 2020, people who frequently booked local shows with original music in Broome County coordinated with each other so they wouldn’t book shows on the same night. The worry was that one show would take away from the crowd at another show. The local music scene was coming out of a lull where there was only enough audience to fill one show at a time, or two shows at smaller venues. Around 2018 and 2019 a younger group of people started going to shows and forming new original bands. In the same night you could catch bands like Stay Off the Fence, Bunk, or Rude World at The Bank or The Bundy. Or you could go see Tom Jolu, Yard Party or Shout At the Robots at The Grassroots Cafe, or Galaxy Brewing. Pretty quickly, there were a lot of shows with young people filling the rooms. Because more people were attending shows, the practice of coordinating show dates stopped. People had to make decisions about what shows to go to, because there were multiple shows happening on the same evening.
As a lover of music, especially local original music, it was exciting but also difficult to choose one band over another. Once the Covid lockdown hit, several bands split up because of a lack of shows and local support for original music.
As Broome County came out of lockdown, in the summer of 2021, things picked up right where they left off. More shows were booked at multiple locations, with more original bands forming and audience numbers growing.
Fast forward to April of this year. I went to see a show at Atomic Toms, knowing there was a show down the road at Cielos. The plan was to go back and forth between the locations to see as many of the bands as possible. Once I was at Toms I realized there was a show across the street at the Crowbar. Three shows, on the same street, each showcasing multiple bands from multiple genres and they all had strong audience numbers.
Something that once seemed to be a problem—having too many shows in one evening—is now a sign of strength in the Broome music scene.