Heartbreak Hits a Positive Note
by Matt Obert
There’s a new sign outside the Strand Theater; we called Rich Lupo for the scoop.
Here at Agenda World HQ, we were very excited recently to hear that the lease on the Strand building had changed hands.
What happened is Mike Kent was getting his fine and punishment for problems with Diesel, and he approached me about buying his lease.It was really too much for me to chew alone, plus it’s just too big a space to have just a live music venue. You need more business than that to make it in there. I had already been talking off and on with my landlords, who own about fifteen dance clubs in Boston. They have a very good reputation. So I approached them about figuring out some kind of partnership so we could do it, and that’s what happened. So Lupo’s will be Lupo’s, but on Thursday and Saturday there’s going to be a dance club in there. What I really got out of it, what I really felt I needed, was I needed a late-night weekend.
Absolutely.
I just couldn’t—it was really hard to make it without late nights. Now if we get a reggae, or a hippie band, we can book ’em on a Friday and have it go late. And just to go on, I also know from talking to them that we’re a little more on the same page. For example, they want to get rid of the revolving dance floor and the birdcages and all that stuff. [laughter] So physically, I think the place will be more suited to a rock club. And, in fact, Lupo’s will be pretty much running the building—you know what I mean?—versus KentCo running the space. So it just basically gives Lupo’s more autonomy over the space, and that extra Friday night late, that’s basically what we’re going to get out of it.
Was this negotiated over a long period of time, or was it just a quick, ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom?
We’ve talked—Mike Kent has been talking about selling the place for years, but we couldn’t close a deal. It was too expensive. Then when that started happening in court, his price came down, and I think he was more sick of everything, and it got doable.
So now that the deal has gone through, what are you looking forward to?
[pause] Me?
Yeah,well ...
Looking forward to? [chuckles]
Maybe you’re just looking forward to Scrabble night, I don’t know.
[laughter] Well, it’s just better. It’s more comfortable. I’ve got a fifteen-year lease. It feels really safe. The other thing was—it’s a little bit hard to explain, but the other thing was slightly more tenuous. But it’s a fifteen-year lease, and the landlords seem very above-board. Nothing against Mike Kent at all, but I’m just saying I’ve got really good partner landlords. I’m really comfortable with them.
Have you considered—I know people have tried this before in that space—trying to section off a smaller area for local shows? I ask because, you know, we really miss the Met Café.
I know. We’ve talked about it. We’ve come up with several different ideas to do it. I don’t know what’s going to happen. We’ve thought of putting a stage—you know, in the back part, where there’s three sections where you can sit?—we’ve thought of making the middle one a “Met stage.”
There isn’t really a good way of getting acoustic separation between a main stage and a second stage in there. It would have to be one or the other.
It would be separate. It would have to be on a night that Lupo’s wasn’t open. We couldn’t possibly have both things at the same time. It’s kind of impossible just because of fire exits and things like that. Anyway, everyone’s got AS220 now, you know? [chuckles] We’ve talked about doing some stuff on the second floor.
The second floor is interesting. It’s just such a huge space.
If we do, it would be more for aesthetics. I don’t think it would ever financially be worth it, put it that way. It’s such a huge building. If we opened it up for a Met-type thing I don’t know if it could possibly pay for itself. But we might do it. We talk about it all the time now.