![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/wp-content\/uploads\/Barrymores-Final-Sun1.jpg\")
\n Grey power: The dance floor on an \u201980s-request Sunday night.<\/p>\n
\n Grey power: The dance floor on an \u201980s-request Sunday night.<\/p>\n
Tipsy twenty-somethings, decked out in Wayfarer sunglasses, fanny packs, neon nylon windbreakers and fishnet stockings, bop to all-request \u201980s music atop a stage. Middle-aged Ottawans sway side-to-side or bop equally, to music they\u2019ve requested, from what may be the decade to which their twenties belonged. This is Barrymore\u2019s Music Hall and its clientele on a Sunday night, better known as \u201980s Night.<\/p>\n
To those swaying side-to-side, I pose a question: Do you happen to be reminiscing about the good old days at Barrymore\u2019s? Though it now draws a crowd only on Sundays, Barrymore\u2019s at its height did not need a nostalgia night to attract people.<\/p>\n
Opened as a disco in 1977, Barrymore\u2019s quickly transitioned and was a rock \u2019n\u2019 roll club by 1979. Throughout the \u201980s, Barrymore\u2019s was known as Ottawa\u2019s answer to New York\u2019s Studio 54 and was host to such legendary acts as U2, B.B. King, R.E.M., James Brown, Tina Turner and the Tragically Hip.<\/p>\n
Today Barrymore\u2019s faces all the challenges of a modern nightclub, but is also regarded as an important space that holds many memories for people in Ottawa. Yet despite such strong public sentiments, Barrymore\u2019s has consistently been unable to recapture its 1980s buzz. Even the building\u2014an architectural marvel nearly a century old, formally known as the Imperial Theatre\u2014now shows a weathered fa\u00e7ade, deemed an eyesore by many.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/wp-content\/uploads\/Barrymores-exterior2.jpg\")
\n The Barrymore’s Bank Street exterior embodies faded glory.<\/p>\n
The venue has undergone several ownership changes since 1991. Owners have included Eugene Haslam (the man behind Ottawa dance club Zaphod Beeblebrox) and then Randy Lanctot. During the \u201990s Barrymore\u2019s still had big-name acts like Radiohead, Bo Diddley and The Commitments. The venue was also used for CD release parties.\u00a0 Allan Wigney, a journalist currently working on a book about the music scene in Ottawa, says that Lucinda Williams\u2019s performance at Barrymore\u2019s in 1998 was the last big act he recalls there. During the late \u201990s and early 2000s, there were local bands with original music performing, but eventually it became more and more cover bands.\u00a0 Wigney attributes the decline of original music at Barrymore\u2019s to Haslam\u2019s departure in 1999.<\/p>\n
The most recent change happened when Montreal-based club owner Vince Simeone purchased Barrymore\u2019s from Randy Lanctot in August 2008. Business at Barrymore\u2019s hasn\u2019t been bustling, and opinions of its latest owner have been lacklustre.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout a visionary kind of ownership, it lost its way. New owners who are from out of town, they have tried to put into place the tried-and-true \u2018We\u2019ll put in the formula disco night or themed disco night,\u2019 \u201d says Denis Armstrong, Ottawa Sun<\/em> entertainment columnist.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have a lot of very interesting people who live in Ottawa, a lot of creative and dynamic people, but the city needs to have places where these people can collect and socialize,\u201d Armstrong adds.<\/p>\n Gord Rhodes ran the club from 1978 to 1991 together with his wife, Sherry Rhodes, and her father, Sonny Thomson. Gord is primarily attributed for bringing in the acts.<\/p>\n \u201cI just told them, \u2018You\u2019re playing Montreal one night, and two nights later you\u2019re playing Toronto, and you got all these other days off. Why waste your time? Come and do two shows in one night,\u2019\u201d said Gord.<\/p>\n Sherry Rhodes says they had a great team in the office. Bob Jones came in during the later years as the promotions manager. Sherry describes Jones as having \u201ca pure white Mohawk with pure white extensions that went down to his waist.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe had three generations of music between us.\u201d Says Sherry, \u201c Gord was the \u201950s and \u201960s: he\u2019s a few years older than me. I was the \u201970s, and Bob was the \u201980s and \u201990s.\u201d<\/p>\n She describes her dad, Sonny Thomson, as the night keeper, there to make sure everything ran smoothly. He once saved Canadian legend (and Guess Who veteran) Burton Cummings from being attacked onstage. Cummings signed an autograph for Thomson that night: \u201cDear Sonny, thanks for keeping me out of the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the acts and the crowds that Barrymore\u2019s was able to bring in, the business still had its challenges. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have a lot of capital. We would lose money, win on others. We took some big losses; we were never in a really comfortable position,\u201d said Sherry.<\/p>\n \u2018Without a visionary kind of ownership, it lost its way.\u2019 Gord says that larger organizations like the NCC and the Jazz and Blues Festivals had larger backings that made it hard for him to compete. He says that he would break the acts into Ottawa\u2019s scene and lose money doing it, and when it was time to bring them in again and make a profit, the festivals would offer the acts big money to play at a free outdoor concert.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a fair business at all; I was very fortunate to be able to do as good as I did,\u201d said Gord.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I had the chance I would take it [Barrymore\u2019s] back because I think my husband, Gord, was the perfect promoter,\u201d said Sherry Rhodes.<\/p>\n A different nightlife<\/span><\/p>\n Armstrong describes an Ottawa nightlife that has changed dramatically since the 1980s. He sees \u201980s Night at Barrymore\u2019s as a diluted version of the past.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s sort of like the zombie version, because they were dangerous times, risky times, sexually, socially. There was a lot going on\u2014people having sex in the bathroom, people doing coke on the dance floor\u2014and now we don\u2019t even allow smoking in the clubs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Gord says the introduction of stricter drinking and driving laws was a detriment to his business: \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t work now. Drinking and driving laws, television\u2019s too good, there\u2019s just too much going on.\u201d<\/p>\n Many echo the idea of by-laws as being detrimental to Barrymore\u2019s.\u00a0 Says Armstrong, \u201cYou know, people would go to these places to have fun, relax, let their hair down. They don\u2019t want to do it while policemen are hanging over their shoulder, breathing down their neck.\u201d<\/p>\n George Syriannas is a relative of Simeone, and the manager at Barrymore\u2019s. He admits that it has been a challenge for reasons including the by-laws.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem is Barrymore\u2019s can fit 1,000, but the city of Ottawa stepped in here with the by-laws and all these other things over the years, and they said, \u2018Stairs, exit this, that, and capacity 420 that\u2019s it, that\u2019s all.\u2019 \u201d says George Syriannas.<\/p>\n \u2018People in Ottawa like to complain, but then they don\u2019t man up.\u2019 \u2013 George Syriannas<\/p>\n As a result of the lower capacity levels, he says that Live Nation, the company that promotes and book bands at venues, will not book them at Barrymore\u2019s, turning instead to bigger locations.\u00a0 Without the ability to bring in bigger names, Barrymore\u2019s is struggling to attract a crowd.<\/p>\n Also, Syriannas says, people want to see live bands playing their own music at Barrymore\u2019s, but financially Barrymore\u2019s does not benefit from this format. \u201cThere are smaller bands and smaller promoters that want to book Barrymore\u2019s, but again it comes down to money. They don\u2019t want to give us any money from the cover.\u201d<\/p>\n Forfeiting cover would not be such a problem if people were spending more at the bar. However, that is not the case, as Syriannas explains.<\/p>\n \u201cBest-case scenario is we put 360 people in here. The average person will spend $10; when you do the math, we sold $3,600 in those two or three hours. Out of that take taxes; take out $1,000 that I need for my staff; take then my cost, and I\u2019m down to nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n Syriannas says the only alternative Barrymore\u2019s can afford is booking cover bands, a popular and successful format used in Byward Market venues. But even this has been a challenge.<\/p>\n He explains that the previous Saturday they widely advertised that Barrymore\u2019s would have a cover band, and that there would be no charge to get in. Fewer than one hundred people showed up.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople in Ottawa like to complain, but then they don\u2019t man up,\u201d adds Syriannas.<\/p>\n All this contrasts with Barrymore\u2019s in its \u201980s heyday. Gord recalls it was not easy back then, either, but they found a way to make it work.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very, very difficult to do it,\u201d says Gord, \u201cgetting people to come out and see shows. You know February the 27th<\/sup>; it\u2019s 40 below; we\u2019d have eight or nine hundred people there. It was very amazing. But if you wanted to see the act, you had to come out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Once celebrated as \u2018Ottawa\u2019s Studio 54\u2019, Barrymore\u2019s Music Hall today relies on \u201980s nostalgia to draw just modest crowds. How the lightning got out of the bottle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[122,123,15,124],"class_list":["post-2465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all","tag-barrymores","tag-barrymores-80s-night","tag-ottawa","tag-ottawa-nightlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2465"}],"version-history":[{"count":145,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4398,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2465\/revisions\/4398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"People](\"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/capitalarts\/wp-content\/uploads\/barrymores-old-pic2.jpg\")
\n The scene in the good old days.<\/p>\n
\n \u2013 Denis Armstrong<\/p>\n