New music venue opens in Pocatello
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POCATELLO – Eastern Idaho residents now have a new venue to hear music from local bands.
One One Seven Music Lounge opened Aug. 28 inside the old Flipside Lounge at 117 South Main Street in downtown Pocatello.
General Manager Brian Reid tells EastIdahoNews.com the response from the community has been great.
“We had four really good bands the next night on Aug. 29 and we had a good showing for that. Last week was a little quiet because of the holiday weekend, but it was still pretty good,” Reid says.
The 2,000-square-foot building offers a venue for local bands to play their music for a live audience. It also includes a bar for customers and a foosball table downstairs.
Reid has been affiliated with the music scene for many years. Originally from Detroit, Michigan, he got his start playing guitar when he was 14.
“I grew up in a family where music was big. My grandma was a piano teacher, my mom loved opera, my dad loved jazz. My brother loved Jimi Hendrix,” says Reid.
He eventually left home to pursue a career as a music artist. One of his highlight experiences is opening for Spirit, a rock band known for its 1969 hit “I Got a Line on You.”
After operating a music lounge in Seattle for several years, his connection with a friend brought him to Pocatello. He began looking for a place to open a music lounge shortly after moving here two years ago.
The building on Main Street proved to be a good fit.
“I came and checked it out and fell in love with it,” he says. “People are nice here. That’s what I like about it.”
He’s considering opening another location, depending on how things go.
For now, he’s just happy to be open for business and he’s inviting any local band or artist who is looking for a place to play to look him up.
“We (feature) bands that mostly do original music,” Reid says. “We had an acoustic guitar player from Boise named Freeman Carter come in the other day, but there’s a lot of musicians around here and we’d like to give them a place to play.”
One One Seven Music Lounge is open Wednesday and Thursday from 4 p.m. to midnight and Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m.
Visit the Facebook page for more information.
