A new venue on Jackson Street is making Lowell’s ever-growing music scene even harder to overlook. Mill City gains another independent performance space with The Overlook, located on the fifth floor of the popular marketplace Mill No. 5. And yes, that name is partially a nod to Stanley Kubrick’s axe-wielding masterpiece The Shining.
The 4,000-square-foot, 200-capacity room is currently in a soft opening phase, with hopes for a grand opening in May or September. After presenting a smattering of performances in 2022, The Overlook will host its first show of the new year this Saturday (January 21), featuring New England bands Potholder, Dred Buffalo, and The Human Beings. The Mill’s events manager Joel Mongeon says his current focus is booking bands from the Lowell, Boston, Nashua, and Worcester areas, although he eventually wants to welcome touring acts to 250 Jackson Street as well.
“With our spring concert series alone, the genres are varying from folk to blues-rock to shoegaze to pop,” he tells Vanyaland. “I don’t see us programming many heavier genres, such as hardcore and metal, if only because we have our neighboring shops to think about. But we’re open to a wide variety of genres.”
For nearly a decade, Mill No. 5 has served as a cultural hub for Lowell, gathering locals and curious visitors for farmers markets, indie film screenings, and holiday-themed shopping sprees. The Mill already welcomes musicians for more low-key performances on a regular basis, namely at its cozy café Coffee & Cotton for singer-songwriter nights (also booked by Mongeon). Adding a full-fledged venue to its cityscape-esque halls only deepens Mill No. 5’s significance to the city.
“You won’t find many concert venues in an environment like Mill No. 5,” Mongeon explains. “We purposely program our events to overlap with our partners’ shop hours so that our attendees can check out the many shopping destinations on the fourth and fifth floors. One could shop for books, vinyl records, vintage clothing, and herbal remedies, grab a coffee, take a yoga class, watch a film in our arthouse theater, and then see three or four bands without ever leaving the comfort of our indoor streetscape, all the while supporting exclusively independent businesses. I don’t know of many event spaces that are cross-collaborative in the way that The Overlook is.”
Mongeon also notes that The Overlook is “never permanently just one thing” and can be flipped from a venue to a marketplace area in less than an hour if needed. Remaining projects for the venue’s completion include furnishing its green room and adding more lighting, signage, and decoration, although a glimpse at the space below demonstrates the room’s polish.
The Overlook is a major addition to the fabric of Mill City’s music scene, which has gained serious momentum in recent years. Nearby venue Taffeta opened its doors inside Western Avenue Studios last year, and CNCPT6 has reinvented UnchARTed Gallery’s old space on Market Street. New Lowell festivals have popped up in recent years as well, such as The Town and The City Festival and 2022’s inaugural Lowell SummerJAM. Still, the loss of favorite rooms like The Hearing Room and Thirsty First (which plans to eventually reopen in a different location downtown) mean these new additions must shoulder extra responsibility within the Lowell arts community. Mongeon is feeling the weight — and he’s eager swoop in and help artists make connections that stretch far beyond Lowell’s city lines.
“The radius around Lowell is full of so many great bands and music communities, so there’s a real opportunity to expand boundaries and to create a space where artists and performers can make one another’s acquaintance,” he concludes. “It sets a precedent that none of us is here to be a part of an insular ‘scene,’ but rather to coexist with as many fellow creative people as our hearts can hold.”
Glimpse around The Overlook below.
