Carolyn Fath
On Sept. 29, 2007, Matt Gerding and Scott Leslie debuted the revamped Majestic Theatre with a performance from Mandy Moore. The bubblegum pop princess wasn’t exactly their first choice (Kings of Leon wasn’t available), but Gerding still looks back on the gig fondly. “It ended up being a good show, a good soft-opening for us,” he says.
Now, exactly one decade later, the venue is celebrating a milestone anniversary in a starkly different fashion — punk band Against Me! is headlining the final Live on King Street show of the summer. Fronted by singer Laura Jean Grace, who became a transgender icon when she came out in 2012, Against Me! is by far the biggest name act to play the series this year, and it also happens to be Gerding’s all-time favorite band. “I had this in mind for a long time,” Gerding says of the serendipitous anniversary show. By a stroke of luck, the band was planning a fall tour, and the final date happened to be Sept. 29. When the gig was confirmed, Gerding says he “did backflips and screamed like a little girl.”
Having a legendary band close out their wildly popular summer concert series speaks to the success Gerding and Leslie have had transforming the former Club Majestic, a nightclub that developed a rough reputation after numerous fights broke out in King Street after bartime. The club’s $10 all-you-can-drink hip-hop DJ nights were blamed for the violence (a problematic notion that the city still grapples with to this day), and the incidents attracted a ton of bad press. “We had to chase out the demons,” Gerding says. “But then we started booking some shows and turning over the reputation.”
Gerding and Leslie were just 28 when they bought the venue with the help of two investors and moved to Madison from Los Angeles. Both grew up listening to punk music and going to shows in small clubs, and they wanted to create a space for music lovers to share communal experiences with their favorite bands. “We want to be champions for live music in this town,” Gerding says. The partners also own two music venues in Columbia, Missouri, which is Gerding’s hometown.
Over the years they made big changes to the historic venue (not the least of which involved remodeling and repainting the garish purple interior), hosting acts big and small, local and national at the Majestic and later at smaller venues around the city as part of their promotion company, Majestic Live. But both agree that the first few years were a challenge. “Our relative lack of experience led to a lot of growing pains,” Leslie says.
While Club Majestic ran afoul of the city and the neighborhood, the Majestic Theatre has become an anchor of the up-and-coming First Settlement District — the only controversies in recent memory include the venue’s frequently criticized practice of selling bottled water instead of providing free tap water for patrons (they have a drinking fountain now!) and questions about how the impending merger with former competitor Frank Productions will affect the local scene. But both owners see the move as a positive step for Madison’s music culture.
“I don’t think Madison has any real idea of how rare it is for a city of this size to have as much going on as we do,” Leslie says. “In very tangible ways, it’s going to get a whole lot better than it already is.”
