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The Met Philadelphia Opens With Fanfare, Bob Dylan
Live Nation Philadelphia – The Met Philadelphia
The interior of The Met Philadelphia.
Promoters unveiled The Met, the latest addition to Philadelphia’s live music scene, with a midday ribbon cutting and an evening Bob Dylan concert on Monday.
The reclaimed historic hall on the northern fringe of Philadelphia’s Center City aims to lure artists and audiences back to town for shows in a not-too-big, not-too-small setting — and Live Nation talent booker Walter McDonald, a recent transfer from Live Nation’s West Coast team, said the venue’s gilt-edged, five-tier theater has already become “a place many acts are wanting to play.” Live Nation regional president Geoff Gordon added that mid-sized urban concert venues are a niche that needs filling in today’s hyperactive touring environment.
Tellingly, the Met’s calendar – well stocked through Sept. 2019 – spans a wide variety, from Charlie Wilson, Pentatonix and Lindsey Sterling holiday shows to legendary divas Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey and Sarah Brightman. Also on tap: rocking performers including Weezer, Tedeschi Trucks Band, and Gary Clark, Jr.; jam band favorites Greensky Bluegrass, Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox and Joe Russo’s Almost Dead; and British exports ranging from James Bay to Nick Mason to Mark Knopfler (a co-production with BRE Presents).
Philly artists will also get their due, with PnB Rock, Boyz II Men, Meek Mill, Kurt Vile & The Violators and Amos Lee booked for the coming months. And laughter will reign with funny acts including Jim Gaffigan, Schitt’s Creek, Trevor Noah, Brian Regan, “Weird Al” Yankovic, and John Oliver, who will perform four shows over Dec. 30 and 31.
Christopher Hoffman – The Met Philadelphia ribbon-cutting
Promoters cut the ribbon at The Met Philadelphia’s unveiling.
“We do not want to be pigeon-holed in one genre,” Gordon told ribbon-cutting attendees on Monday. “We’re going to do it all.”
With a capacity of 3,400 for fully-seated events and about 4,000 for general admission concerts, where the front section of orchestra seats are removed, The Met offers an elegant and welcome step-up for today’s touring acts, from newbies to seasoned vets.
Many potential bookings for The Met are artists who would otherwise play Philadelphia’s several 2,500- to 3,100-seat venues and “are often turning people away,” Gordon noted.
Those rooms include Live Nation’s Fillmore Philadelphia, (opened in 2015), AEG/Bowery Presents’ Franklin Music Hall (formerly known as Electric Factory), Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts’ elegant, midtown Verizon Hall and Academy of Music (located 15 blocks south of The Met) and Tower Theater, the venue in Philadelphia’s Upper Darby suburb that is seemingly suffering most from the new rival. “Having an extra 800 seats to sell is nothing to sneeze at,” said Gordon. “At $50 a ticket, that’s an additional $40,000.” As for Tower’s current dearth of bookings, Gordon shrugged and said, “audiences seem anxious to come back to town for shows.”
Built for opera in 1908 by impresario Oscar Hammerstein – the grandfather of legendary Broadway lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II – and now grandly refurbished at a cost of $56 million, the revamped Met welcomes visitors with a spacious lobby and surprisingly intimate showroom feel. Thank the gracefully curved wrap-around balconies and boxes, elevated rear orchestra section and gently sloped upper decks that offer a comfortable view even from the last row. (To get to the top Loge level, take the new elevator or a stimulating, 76-step climb.)
As rethought by Live Nation in partnership with building owners Eric Blumenfeld and the Holy Ghost Headquarters Revival Center, the church that has called The Met its home since 1997, excluding the renovation, the redone venue oozes a spare-no-expense vibe.
Jonathan Takiff – The Met Philadelphia
The Met Philadelphia’s interior awaits.
The room’s already-superior acoustics are enhanced by an elaborate Clair Brothers sound system that offers pleasing, echo-free and well-balanced sound from all quarters of the building; enhanced with under-stage subwoofers, audio is a bit warmer and bassier in the front orchestra zone, while a tad sharper and more articulated in the balconies. (The Philadelphia Orchestra relished recording albums at The Met under the batons of Eugene Ormandy and Riccardo Muti in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, until one player put a foot through a decaying floorboard and scared them all away.)
“We wanted to make it easy for visiting acts, with this state-of-the-art Clair installation,” said McDonald. “Bands won’t need to have to haul in their own sound systems, though some of the EDM guys will still insist on adding enhancements.”
Other revamped creature comforts include plush velour theater seating – even in the removable rows up front – blessed with staggered positioning and reasonable leg room. Lavatories are upscale and co-ed on most levels. A ring of deluxe box seats one flight up will make for very special parties for a couple hundred high rollers. Twenty-five bars – including some cute hideaway spots – are sprinkled throughout the premises, promising patrons will never go thirsty again.
While booking ambitions are broad, a decision to fill-in the original opera house’s orchestra pit underscores that the Live Nation team won’t be going after Broadway musicals, a major money maker for the 2,500-seat Academy of Music. “We don’t want to lock down or rebuild the room for a long-running event,” said Gordon. “But a simpler production like Dear Evan Hansen (with a stage-rear scaffolded orchestra) “could work. And we have booked in one theater piece – Tyler Perry doing Madea’s Farewell Play.“
The Met also features a curtaining system that hides parts of the balcony – reducing capacity to 2,700 or 1,900. Pulling out and storing those 800-plus rail-mounted seats up front takes only four hours and will open the floor to EDM concerts, boxing matches, circuses or private events. Located on the building’s first balcony level, the Grand Salle luxury lounge will also be available for private functions, and developer Blumenfeld is angling to install street-level dining and coffee emporiums “to entertain visitors before and after the shows,” building architect Sam Olshin said.
Christopher Hoffman – The Met Philadelphia’s ribbon-cutting ceremony
Attendees of the venue’s ribbon-cutting ceremony congregate.
Live Nation’s local director of production John Stevenson explained that talent and crew will appreciate The Met’s backstage accommodations, which include three production offices, two high-end star dressing rooms, nine additional dressing rooms, and a separate chorus-herding space, stacked up on all five theater levels and serviced with two private elevators. Another perk for insiders: deep, wide, side-of-stage balconies high in the wings where artists’ families and friends artists can watch shows from a bird’s eye perspective.
The Met’s ultimate ace-in-the-hole for attracting big name talent is its unusually large stage, which measures 94 feet across, 65 feet deep, 80 feet high and rivals the massive dimensions of New York’s Radio City Music Hall and Metropolitan Opera House. (No wonder the Metropolitan Opera company took over, renamed Hammerstein’s Philly theater the “Metropolitan Opera House,” and ran it for about a decade, starting just a couple years after the venue’s initial debut.)
This same stage managed a 700-person production of Bizet’s Carmen on opening night 110 years ago, and McDonald predicted that could happen again soon. “You’ll again be seeing some really big shows here,” he said. “Think six-or-seven-or-more tractor-trailer-truck filling productions – shows built for arenas that could also do quite well at our Met.
“There are plenty of artists – like Arcade Fire and Lana Del Rey – who try to do an arena act and can’t sell out in most markets,” McDonald continued. “They get to 7,000 or 8,000 tickets which is no small feat, but now we’re offering them an alternative. You can come in here and sell out two nights, maybe even three or four. It makes so much more sense.” He explained that, while artists performing strings of dates at The Met would spend more for extra nights of lodging, they’d save on the costs of assembling, disassembling and transporting their production from town to town.
“And the experience is better for the fan,” he added. “It’s a more intimate setting, the acoustics are amazing. So if you can still preserve the integrity of your production with what we have here stage-wise, make good money and create a great buzz, then why not go for it?”