On any given day, visitors to the campus of the University of California, Santa Cruz, might stumble upon a grove of towering 150-foot coastal trees, a nesting white-tailed hawk, a handful of yellow banana slugs by the side of the trail, or a full production concert. attended by 2,800 music lovers.
The latter would come courtesy of the historic on-campus Quarry Amphitheater, a natural limestone amphitheater that fell into disrepair in the 2000s and reopened in 2017 after a two-phase, $8 million capital improvement project — before closing again due to COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the Quarry officially relaunches as a concert venue on October 12 with Kevin Morby Presents: This Is A festival with Morby (ex of Babies and Woods); singer and songwriter Jessica Pratt; Trevor Powers' experimental-pop project Youth Lagoon. prolific Parisian drummer, composer and producer 3; favorite indie-rocker Ben Kweller; and up-and-coming hip-hop and alt-rock band Blackstarkids. Chris Black and Jason Stewart from the popular culture podcast How Long Gone will serve as emcees for the evening.
“The Quarry is such an incredible venue and looking to the future of the venue, we wanted to create a replica that looks like the original but holds its own with any other modern venue,” said Quarry Amphitheater GM. Jose Reyes-Olivaswho works on behalf of UCSC and previously booked and helped produce the Stern Grove music festival in San Francisco.
Last month, the Quarry hosted a display that Reyes-Olivas says was “rebuilt…from the ground up,” adding a new load-bearing roof system, lighting trusses and motorized rigging. The venue does not have a PA system. Tours bring their own sound or rely on third-party backline companies for reinforcements, which Reyes-Olivas points out is also happening at nearby Berkeley, California's Greek Theater and Mountain Winery in Saratoga, California.
Once considered a stopover for bands touring between the Bay Area and LA, California's Central Coast has become a major music market in its own right. Oakland's Ineffable operates a number of venues in Santa Cruz and beach towns like Ventura and Monterey, while nearby Stanford University reopened its 8,000-capacity Frost Amphitheater in 2021.
The Quarry — which technically reopened last month with a special screening of Talking Heads' 1984 concert documentary Stop making sense — agreed to a preferred booking deal with Bay Area independent concert promoter Noise Pop Industries, though Reyes-Olivas says Bulletin board the venue is an open facility available to eligible concert promoters. Founded in 1993 as a $5 club night with a five-band bill inside San Francisco's Kennel Club — now known as The Independent — Noise Pop has since grown into one of the Bay's top independent promoters, booking hundreds of bands at dozens of venues each year and serves as one of California's best-known music showcases.
When it came time to close Quarry, Morby “was definitely on the list,” says the Noise Pop CEO Michelle Swing. “We're really big fans of Kevin and everything he does…so we approached his team about curating a full day at the Quarry and he loved the idea.”
He added, “I think what's fantastic is that the university is really investing in finding ways to bring more shows to the Quarry, cutting costs even further and investing in the venue. We work with them to find the right shows that make sense for Santa Cruz music fans.”
tickets for Kevin Morby Presents: This Is A festival are on sale now via QuarryAmphitheater.com.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/pro/uc-santa-cruz-quarry-amphitheater-concert-renovation-kevin-morby/
