A new Portland music venue aimed at filling the gap between the city’s small clubs and larger concert and event halls is set to open Friday.
Live at Madrid’s is located on Fore Street near the city’s eastern waterfront. With a capacity of about 800, owner Josh Schlesinger envisions it being a mid-sized place local and regional bands can play, while also attracting established artists looking for a good-sized room that’s still somewhat intimate.
The venue’s first show on Friday will feature a well-known local band, Gina and the Red Eye Flight Crew, which blends soul, R&B and pop. Other shows on the venue’s schedule so far feature a mix of local and regional acts, including three Portland bands playing album-release shows: Gwynne and the Tonics on April 3; the rap duo OystahGutt on April 11 and Rigometrics on April 18.
There are about 20 shows currently scheduled into October, with “a ton more” to be announced soon, Schlesinger said Monday. There are several well-known Maine bands scheduled to play the venue throughout the year, including Sparks the Rescue on May 8; “American Idol” finalist Julia Haven (formerly Gagnon) as part of a benefit show with other acts on May 9; The Mallett Brothers Band on July 10-11; Spose on July 17 and a reunion show for The Ghost of Paul Revere on Sept. 4, which is already sold out.
Live at Madrid’s will feature a main hall with a capacity of about 600, with a mostly standing-room audience space and 16 by 32-foot stage, three feet off the floor. Patrons will enter the venue by coming into the 200-capacity lounge area, featuring a bar, ticketing and the coat-check room. People in the lounge can see into the main hall at certain spots, Schlesinger said, and he plans to have video screens at some point broadcasting the performers. The building at 144 Fore Street had previously held a marine supply business and a photographer’s space. Besides live music, the venue will host professional wrestling, weddings and other functions.
Currently the city has several small clubs and bars with capacities of 200 people or less, and a few indoor venues with capacities of nearly 2,000 or more. The State Theatre and Merrill Auditorium both hold about 1,900, while Cross Insurance Arena can hold more than 6,000 for concerts and large-scale events. The middle ground between small clubs and larger venues had been filled for years by Port City Music Hall on Congress Street, a 550-seat venue that closed in 2020.
Concert industry giant Live Nation had proposed adding a new 3,300-seat venue to the city’s concert mix in 2024, to be built across the street from the city-owned Merrill Auditorium, which has faced significant resistance from Portland’s music community. The city council passed a moratorium on new venues with more than 2,000 seats in August, after more nearly four hours of public comment. In Feburary the council unanimously approved extending the moratorium for another six months.
Back when Port City Music Hall closed in 2020, Schlesinger made an offer to rent the space that was once Port City, but it went to someone else. This is Schlesinger’s first foray into the music business, although he’s worked in hospitality in Portland for more than 20 years and was sales director for Bissell Brothers brewery.
Schlesinger’s reasons for starting Live at Madrid’s include his own experiences in Portland and how much he enjoyed and valued seeing shows at local venues like The Big Easy, Asylum and Port City Music Hall.
Meg Shorette, who had booked acts for Port City Music Hall and was a founder of the All Roads Music Festival in Belfast and Portland, will be the booker for Live at Madrid’s. Cam Jones, a local musician, will work on marketing and social media.
“Being new in this business, having this team, this support system, has been so important,” said Schlesinger.
The venue’s name came to Schlesinger when he was on a plane, watching the 2019 Quentin Tarantino film, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” There’s a brief mention of Johnny Madrid, a character from a western television show that ran for two years in the late ’60s. Schlesinger dropped Johnny and kept Madrid.
Schlesinger is pronouncing the venue’s name like the city in Spain. But since he often made beer sales trips to Farminton and Rangeley, he’s well aware of the tiny Maine hamlet of Madrid, pronounced “mad-rid.” So he certainly understands if people want to pronounce it that way. In fact, the venue’s logo was inspired by the Welcome to Madrid sign on Route 4.
“It’s sort of like “potayto, potahto,” said Schlesinger.
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