World Cafe Live sees if it's a fit for a Queen

WILMINGTON - One gray afternoon last week, a mural depicting four musicians with connections to Delaware's principal city - trumpeter Clifford Brown, guitarist David Bromberg, reggae icon Bob Marley, and bandleader Cab Calloway - urged Wilmingtonians to "celebrate the music and soul of our city."

Amid the Market Street mix of tech-company start-ups and shut-down storefronts, hopeful clothing boutiques and pawnshops, there weren't enough pedestrians to initiate even the most meager of celebrations.

But just a few blocks down at the Queen Theatre, dark since showing Vincent Price in House on Haunted Hill in 1959, there was a bustle of activity aiming to add a new chapter to Wilmington's musical history - and play a pivotal role in reviving the long-struggling downtown.

That's where World Cafe Live at the Queen, the $25 million reclamation project spearheaded by live-music entrepreneur Hal Real, owner of the first World Cafe Live in Philadelphia, buzzed in anticipation of its grand opening this weekend.

The music started Friday with a Free at Noon concert broadcast on WXPN-FM (88.5) by Louisiana guitarist Sonny Landreth in the onetime burlesque house's dramatic Downstairs Live venue, an impressive space with 60-foot ceilings reminiscent of another former burlesque house, Chinatown's Trocadero - but with far greater creature comforts.

The celebratory sounds in the room - with a standing capacity of 800 and seated capacity of 400, slightly bigger than the World Cafe Live in University City - were to continue with a sold-out show by singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson on Saturday night and another, not free, by Landreth on Sunday.

Stopping to admire one of two massive film projectors saved from the Queen's balcony, the 58-year-old Real says he "wasn't looking to have this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but I'm thrilled."

Real had a plan to "expand intelligently" when he opened World Cafe Live in 2005 in a renovated building on Walnut Street that houses XPN, the University of Pennsylvania-owned adult-alternative station from which he licenses the World Cafe name.

With the mother ship humming - last year, it drew 150,000 people to 567 ticketed events, plus private events - Real was looking hard at other markets. Louisville, Ky.; Cincinnati; and southern Connecticut were on his radar.

The businessman moved from Malvern to downtown Wilmington with his wife and yellow Labrador last month to be more hands-on with the new venue. He hadn't even considered Wilmington until approached in 2007 by city officials and the development firm Buccini/Pollin, which owns several historic buildings along the lower Market Street corridor dubbed LOMA.

"They asked me what impact live music can have on urban renaissance, and I said that the power of music to rebuild community is huge," Real recalls.

Lori Brennan of the University City District says the original World Cafe has had a resonating impact on the area's commercial and residential growth.

"We looked to them to help us bridge the gap between Center City and University City," she says, noting that other live-music venues such as the Blockley have opened in West Philadelphia in the World Cafe wake. "They've been a tremendous asset to the neighborhood."

For Wilmington, though, the stakes are higher.

The Grand Opera House, which books dance and theater shows and pop acts from Harry Connick Jr. to the White Stripes, has been going it alone for decades as an all-purpose entertainment venue in downtown Wilmington.

"Having a live-music venue . . . to complement the Grand is part of a vision for revitalizing Market Street," says Jeff Flynn, Wilmington's deputy director of economic development. And since the market is smaller than Philadelphia, World Cafe Live - which will employ 100 people in a mix of full- and part-time jobs, for which there were 6,000 applicants - is bound to have "a larger proportional impact," Flynn says.

"It's a game changer," says Steve Bailey, executive director of the Grand, sampling a pizza at the Queen's Upstairs Live restaurant, which converts into a 250-capacity venue with better sight lines than those of its counterpart at the original World Cafe Live. (Real hopes that with the two rooms, plus a third in a former boxing gym on the top floor, the Queen can present 350 to 400 shows a year and draw 100,000 people downtown.)

The new outpost will bring in Aimee Mann next Saturday, Robert Randolph and the Family Band on May 16, and the public-radio Non-Commvention, with more than 30 national acts including Bright Eyes, Ben Harper, and Devotchka, from May 19 to 21.

With that kind of lineup, it could be a threat to the 1,200-capacity Grand.

"It could be," Bailey says. "I don't think it's going to be, though. I don't think they would have come here if we both didn't believe it wasn't about splitting audiences. It's about dramatically growing an audience. I think we'll increase the patron base."

The reopening of the Queen, whose site first housed the Indian Queen Tavern in the 1780s, has Wilmington boosters excited. Guitarist Bromberg, whose high-end violin shop is just down Market Street, will move his Monday night jam sessions to the Queen when in town. His artist wife, Nancy Josephson, created the tiled mosaic in the building's foyer.

And Sam Calagione, owner of the Dogfish Head craft brewery in Milton, has concocted a beer called Queen's Golden Crown, available only at the Queen.

"It's always been a little sad for us that our biggest city's downtown has not been as vibrant as it could be," says Calagione, who will team with Philly.com sommelier Marnie Old in a sold-out "He Said Beer, She Said Wine" event at the Queen on April 13. "We all want to see Wilmington become the awesome city it can become."

Though two World Cafe Lives less than 30 miles apart on I-95 might seem too close, market research indicates otherwise, says Roger LaMay, general manager of WXPN, which will maintain a satellite studio in a space leased from Real.

"We're really drawing from a different fan base, and an underserved fan base," says LaMay.

"It's a chance to see great bands in a great house. Now it's about getting people there."

For a video featuring performances, interior and exterior photographs, and an interview with Hal Real, the owner of

World Cafe Live at the Queen, visit www.philly.com/ queentheatreEndText