One of the Boston area’s finest dance party and live music spaces is re-booting after the New Year. Middlesex Lounge, a 10-year-old nightclub and restaurant in Cambridge’s Central Square, will only open three nights a week come 2015, and feature “physical and metaphysical changes” to the current layout. With a Thursday, Friday and Saturday night schedule, the room will eliminate its lunch hours and full operation Sundays through Wednesdays.
Middlesex manager Nate Brown tells Vanyaland he informed his staff of the news on Monday, and earlier tonight sent out an email to promoters detailing the scheduling change. That email was first publicized and reprinted by our friends at Dig Boston, and you can read it in full below. The email will serve as the venue’s public statement until there is more news to report, Brown says.
Meanwhile, the news is troubling for several reasons. One, venues don’t just shut down four nights a week because financials are completely healthy. And two, the Sunday to Wednesday slate over the past decade at Middlesex was some of the better programming in the area: The bi-weekly Tuesday night party Hearthrob was one of our town’s most legendary and notorious parties (of any genre or style) during its run in the late 2000s and the midweek pRIMORDIAL sOUNDS nights showcased the best of the Boston rock underground.
Furthermore, the weekly techno party Make It New, which we hyped last week for their remarkable 10th anniversary party with Tiga, have earned the right to lock down every Thursday. So what’s left for other programming ideas is limited to Friday and Saturday. The new Hearthrob, whatever it may be, theoretically speaking, does not exist in this new format.
That said, Middlesex has always been at the forefront of progressive nightlife in this city, and if the decision-makers feel this is in the best interest of the venue, then it’s the right decision. They are doing this to survive, not because they want the nights off.
Read Brown’s message below.
When we opened 10 years ago this month, our motto was “Lunch, Lounge, Live” and in the past 10 years we have adapted to fit many different kinds of events outside of those three. Some types of events fit better than others but nothing really ever fit perfectly. Being described as a schizophrenic space doesn’t have positive associations one would expect. The theme that has been most successful for us has always been the weekend dance club. Even then, some aspects of the space have been less than ideal for a busy dancing and drinking environment.
So it has been decided that in January 2015 Middlesex will be allocating all its energies to making Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights the most fun nights in Cambridge and will not be opening for regular business hours the remaining days of the week.
In the coming months MSEX will be going through some physical and metaphysical changes to appropriately embrace the nightclub scene so we can be as streamlined and fun as possible.
For those of you that host nights in the midweek, It has been a pleasure working with you. I know a few of you take off the month of December so in that case, November would be our last engagement. If you need a reference for your next venue, please do not hesitate to let me know.
Our last day of our current format will be 12/23 and we will be closed for the week to take care of some larger renovations and reopen to the public on Thursday January 1st as 12/31 NYE is rented for a private party.
Here are some notable upcoming events at Middlesex…
