Update: As of July 28, the Edgewater has canceled the remaining concerts in its Summer Music Series on Friday and Saturday nights. Events will return Aug. 24 with the Mendota Gridiron Club's football season kickoff, the End of Summer Brewgrass Festival Aug. 25 and a Badger tailgate party Sept. 1. The "Facts and a Flick" movie series and other non-concert events will continue through the end of summer.
Less than a week after abruptly canceling two outdoor concerts, the Edgewater Hotel has called off another weekend of live music. Members of Them Coulee Boys and The Big Payback — scheduled to play July 21 and 22, respectively — confirmed to Isthmus Wednesday morning that the performances are no longer happening.
“It is a bummer,” says Jamie Kember, who plays trombone in The Big Payback. “We have had great experiences playing there for different kinds of events over the years.”
Kember says the band held off promoting the July 22 gig after hearing about the Edgewater’s cancellations via a July 14 Isthmus story. But the group remained hopeful that they would still be able to play. Edgewater staff told the band over the weekend that they would have more information early in the week, and on Wednesday told them of the cancellation. Soren Staff, a member of Them Coulee Boys, also learned of the cancellation Wednesday morning from the band’s agent, who said the Edgewater is “working to keep the series going.” Them Coulee Boys has another gig booked at the venue on Aug. 26, which they are still hoping to play.
“We do not see the Edgewater at fault at all,” Staff says. “We really appreciate the support they've given us the last two years.”
Edgewater spokesperson Claire Varrelmann emailed a statement to Isthmus last week saying they were “looking into this issue.” Repeated requests for follow-up information were declined.
The saga began the evening of July 8, when Madison reggae band Natty Nation was getting ready to play an outdoor concert at the Edgewater. The weather was gorgeous, downtown was bustling and the band members were looking forward to repeating the success of the free show they played last summer on the hotel’s Grand Plaza. “The vibe was really good, and that’s a precious thing,” says Aaron Konkol, who plays keyboard in the group.
But the night took a turn after the event apparently prompted a noise complaint from a neighbor — rumored to be a powerful local attorney. Event organizers turned down the music, called for an unscheduled set break and ended up cutting the gig short. “They kept turning down our monitors until we couldn’t hear ourselves,” Konkol says. “Somebody was really trying to kill the vibe.”
Konkol says Edgewater staff warned Natty Nation about the possibility of noise complaints and that the band was prepared and willing to work with sound engineers to make sure the music stayed at a reasonable level. In an effort to reduce volume further, the stage and speakers were positioned so amplified sound was projected into the Edgewater and out across the lake. It wasn’t ideal for the crowd, but staffers were professional and apologetic when communicating the noise-reducing parameters for the performance, Konkol says. “The staff was trying to do everything right to appease this person, and apparently it just wasn’t enough.”
Varrelmann could not say if a specific complaint prompted the cancellation of last weekend’s outdoor concerts, and it’s unclear who made the calls on July 8. Madison attorney Fred Mohs — a resident of the Mansion Hill neighborhood and a longtime critic of the Edgewater project — says it wasn’t him. But he was pleased to learn that the two concerts were canceled.
“Listen, that’s great that they’re going to do that,” he says. “It’s been a cause of great distress to the neighbors.”
Mohs, who filed a lawsuit against the Edgewater redevelopment project in 2010, says the issue of noise was “thoroughly discussed” when the hotel was going through the approval process, but it was “never resolved satisfactorily” for the neighborhood.
“Nobody can understand why a hotel that wants to be a luxury hotel wants to have cheap bands with amplified music playing outside — none of the grand hotels do that,” he says. “It’s Packers jackets welcome, there’s no dress code, it’s just inappropriate.”
Mohs also owns rental properties near the Edgewater and says he’s had tenants give up lakeview apartments and move to the other side of the building to escape the noise. He says others in the neighborhood share his concerns, noting that there have been several meetings involving city officials and police to discuss the noise issues. “I can’t think of a neighborhood that would want this, that wouldn’t consider this a terrible negative,” he says. “Everybody agrees.”
Ald. Ledell Zellers, District 2, says she’s been hearing “quite a few” complaints from neighbors — not just about the volume of the music, but also about the frequency of outdoor events at the Edgewater. “If you look at their website, they have an average of three a week,” Zellers says. “That can be pretty hard to endure in a residential neighborhood, particularly if you want to have the windows open.”
But Zellers believes it’s not just citizen complaints that caused the concerts to shut down — it was an issue with the Edgewater’s entertainment license. The business has been relying on temporary permits but now needs a permanent entertainment license, and no application has been filed. The Edgewater did have a license from 2009 to 2014 but failed to pay the renewal fee and now owes more than $900 plus late fees to the city.
In her statement, Varrelmann says that the Edgewater operates under a Public Access Management Agreement, which was executed with the city of Madison as part of the hotel’s development entitlements. “This PAMA provides the Edgewater the right to host events, including concerts, on The Grand Plaza, 365 days a year,” she wrote. “Since opening, we have operated well within the scope of this agreement.”
City staff reached by Isthmus were unsure whether the agreement, which was apparently drafted when Mayor Dave Cieslewicz was in office, could serve as an entertainment license. An email to Varrelman seeking clarification went unanswered.
The Edgewater will honor contracts and pay the bands whose shows were canceled. Kember praised the event staff and venue, saying he’s hopeful that the issues can be worked out “so that this year’s series can be salvaged and so that music can happen at the Edgewater in the future.”
