Freret Street music venue Gasa Gasa will reopen soon, after abruptly shutting its doors in late 2023.
That’s welcome news for New Orleans’ independent and alternative music scene, which has faced dwindling opportunities in the past few years.
A reopening date has not yet been announced, but a representative for the venue confirmed to Gambit it will reopen “sometime in the next few weeks.”
On its social media, Gasa Gasa has been promoting several upcoming shows scheduled for March and April, including shows by Sonido Gallo Negro on March 15, Where Y’acht on March 29, Slothrust with Weakened Friends on April 11 and Caroline Rose on April 15.
Those concerts also are listed on the venue’s website, and tickets are already on sale for Where Y’acht. Tickets for the others go on sale Friday, Jan. 24.
Gasa Gasa’s lineup so far indicates the club will be sticking to its roots as an inclusive space for indie and alternative groups, as well as up and coming bands touring nationally.
Gasa Gasa opened in 2013 as a concert venue and bar. But it also hosted film screenings, art shows and served as an occasional recording studio – living up to its name, which is Japanese slang for “doing too many things at once.”
The colorful, art-adorned club was part of an important post-Hurricane Katrina renaissance on Freret Street in an area of the city that had few live music venues catering to the alternative scene.
But the club has faced hardships and uncertainty in recent years. Its original owners put it on the market in July of 2020, citing financial fallout from the Covid-19 shutdowns. Later that year, it was reopened by new owners Lance Paddock and Remi DeMatteo.
The club once again closed in November 2023, and in a statement at the time, Paddock and DeMatteo said they wanted to either sell the venue or get it under more solid financial footing before reopening.
It is unclear who owns the venue now. But for now, longtime devotees are expressing their excitement online with several commenters leaving heart emojis and exclamation points in the comments section.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.nola.com ’
