With the media pounding this bad economy into our heads 24-7 one would think entertainment options would be the first thing that many people would cut out of their budgets. I pictured a doomsday scenario for live music this winter with less national acts coming through and people holing up at home to play video games or watch TV and movie rentals. Just the opposite happened and it seemed like more people were out watching music this winter than in previous ones. Omaha is considered more “recession proof” than a lot of towns but I still know more than my fair share of people who have been laid off and I am sure that you do as well. I have been mentioning this surge in crowd attendance to people and pretty much everyone has the same answer. Escape. People are going out to escape the doom and gloom messages and a $7 ticket to a local show for a night out or even a $20 ticket for a quality national act seems like a fair price to people needing that.

In the past couple weeks I saw people being turned away from Brad Hoshaw’s CD release party at the Slowdown, and a packed house at the Waiting Room on separate nights for Satchel Grande and Secret Weapon. I have attended sold out shows for Andrew Bird and Todd Snider, both acts in previous times through never came close to the numbers they pulled this time around. Upcoming shows that are already sold out include Death Cab For Cutie at the Holland Performing Arts Center, Conor Oberst at the Slowdown, Hed PE at the Waiting Room, and the Bright Eyes show at the Waiting Room now scheduled for March 18 is likely to be sold out by the time you read this as well. When talking with promoters it seems that other shows are also selling well, too. Even up-and-coming bands that have made multiple trips through the area are finding larger crowds than the time before. There was a noticeable difference in crowd size at last week’s Murder By Death show and I am hoping that this
Monday’s NOMO show at the Waiting Room sees a similar increase.

The other thing that I am noticing at a lot of shows are a lot of faces that are not familiar. This is what we have been trying to achieve for a long time. Local bands are stacking their shows with quality lineups and the packaging of local acts may be educating friends and fans of other bands that there is a lot of music to explore here in Omaha. The music fan wins on these shows as a band playing in front of a couple hundred people rather than 20 will always give a better performance though many will say that they will play great no matter how many are in attendance. Local bands also seem to be playing it smarter by either playing smaller rooms more often or making it an event when playing a show at a bigger venue.

There are other positive things happening in the local music scene as well. Many albums coming out of Omaha do not sound like “local records” anymore. We have great studios in town, we have great small to mid-size venues in town, and I think the music scene is getting quite a bit of coverage through the media as well. I am seeing more local bands than ever line up summer tours or at least weekend excursions for this summer and more bands taking the business of their art more seriously. It seems as though the theme for our lives this year, as defined by the media, will be one of despair, but for fans of live music and the local music scene the outlook for the rest of 2009 looks to be a bull market.