An all-ages venue in San Lorenzo is reopening on Friday, Mar. 12. But if you’ve never heard of Ashland Hall (located at 16490 Kent Ave.) in the first place, that’s because the 250-capacity rental hall only hosted about a half-dozen shows last year, according to Andrew Kutsenda of PinUp Productions, which is collaborating with other local music promoters to book the shows.
As Kutsenda explained, even though the venue booked a handful of shows between summer and winter of 2009, most of the events sold out or almost sold out. “Kids just latched onto it,” he said. While his production company books most of its shows in the South Bay, many of the bands that play are from the East Bay or the Peninsula.
So why are so many East Bay bands going down south to play? Kutsenda says it’s because the East Bay club scene doesn’t allow certain kinds of bands to perform. “I love the music coming out of there, but there’s also been a strong backlash against it in the underground scene,” he said. “If you don’t play an acoustic guitar or have a keyboard, you can’t make it in the East Bay scene. A lot of bands that have a breakdown or more poppy anthems can’t make it. We gave a lot of those kids a place to play. … We just hit a market that a lot of people hadn’t really touched on.”
