CUB TO CLUB
Sonia emerges from site of T.T. the Bear’s Place
You can’t replace T.T. the Bear’s Place — the Central Square rock club integral in launching the Pixies and Mighty Mighty Bosstones that closed in July 2015. What you can do is put a new club in the building that once housed T.T.’s. That’s exactly what the owners of the Middle East have done.
On Friday, Sonia opens its doors with a bill headlined by Doom Lover and rounded out by Auva, Creaturos and Bad Boys Club.
While it’s standard for club renovations to seem to take forever — see Harper’s Ferry’s transition to Brighton Music Hall or Radio’s to Thunder Road — Sonia manager Ned Wellbery of Leedz Edutainment said the creation of Sonia took an epic effort.
“At first, we were just going to keep the same layout as T.T.’s with a fresh coat of paint,” Wellbery said. “Then we were going to just move the bathrooms, then it was remove one structural beam. Eventually, the owners decided to fully renovate the whole space. But for every wall you’d knock down, you would find 10 more issues to address.”
The result is a 320-capacity room with a new layout, adding a lounge area, DJ platform and sound booth. Anyone looking for echoes of T.T.’s in the new space will be disappointed.
“When Bonnie (Bouley), the owner of T.T.’s, left, she took that legacy with her,” Wellbery said. “We wanted to create something new that was an extension of the Middle East.”
Building a new legacy will be important if Sonia is going to help Central Square remain the city’s live music hub. When All Asia closed in 2012, the owners planned to launch a new club with two stages, but the venue never materialized. The shuttering of T.T.’s further hurt the scene, with fans often skipping Central Square for better bills across the river.
“For most of the people I know here, Central Square was the first neighborhood they ever played, whether it was All Asia or T.T.’s or one of the Middle East rooms, it’s sort of the origin story for a lot of us,” Doom Lover’s Jeffrey Vachon said. “Central Square is maybe the most important neighborhood in the scene, and to have the room at 10 Brookline (St.) back is a tremendous gift for all of us.”
Of course, simply plopping a venue down in a key location won’t translate to instant success. Music halls around Boston appear and disappear with relative frequency these days. The team behind Sonia know they will have to parlay the initial buzz into a crowd of regulars.
“I believe (success comes from) a combination of booking great shows and having a well-designed venue in a good location,” Wellbery said. “Talent buying obviously plays a major part, but there are other factors too. You have to have a good team in place, ’cause there’s a lot of moving parts to maintain a good reputation among patrons, artists, agents, promoters and the local community.”
They also know they need to get their liquor license in place. It could be a matter of days or weeks, but Sonia and the city haven’t finalized the details of the license. Until then, Sonia will remain open for business as an all-ages venue.