John Hiatt was the first musician I ever saw at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, in October 2000. The shows that night, one early and one late, marked Hiatt’s return to the room after a long absence. “Why the hell haven’t I been here in 15 years?” he asked at one point.
He may not get the chance again. The Iron Horse hasn’t held a concert since March 2020, and it looks as though the venue on Center Street may be closed for good. That’s a big loss for Northampton: the place has been a mainstay of the local concert scene since it opened in 1979 as a coffeehouse that occasionally featured live music.
Since 1994, the Iron Horse has been owned by Eric Suher, who also owns the Calvin Theatre, Pearl Street Nightclub and Mountain Park, in Holyoke as part of the Iron Horse Entertainment Group. Pearl Street has been dark all year. The Calvin is mostly booking tribute bands. Yet despite adverse circumstances, new concert venues have opened over the past few years, including Bombyx Center for Arts & Equity in Florence and the Drake in Amherst, which has reshuffled the Western Massachusetts music scene. I wrote about what’s going on here in a deep-dive story for The Boston Globe. As far as I know, it’s the first time anyone has counted, and added up the value of, Suher’s various properties in Northampton.
Though the IHEG venues may be finished, new rooms are springing up in its place, and a once-vibrant music scene in Western Massachusetts looks set to stay that way, even amid a changing musical landscape.