No room for elbows

The good news: the Elbow Room is coming back to Columbia. The bad news: it ain’t the same Elbow Room.

As has been reported in Otis Taylor’s story in The State, what was formerly Pub and formerly Sudworks is now Elbow Room, but music will not be the concentration of the business. As partners in the new bar have said, they want to run a good bar first and a music venue second. As it stands, with the so-called “Elbow Room” trying to bring in the Five Points crowd for music, the only live music venue in the traditional college booze intersection will be at the country bar, Saloon, on Harden Street, next to Group Therapy.

One of the worst immediate outcomes is that the last of the Sudworks’ scheduled bands will be rerouted to Headliners, a club with acoustics that are perhaps the worst in town. God willing, across-the-river New Brookland Tavern will be able to cover the problem.

However, without a solid rock venue in Columbia proper, denizens of the Midlands will continue to drive to Charlotte, Greenville, Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Atlanta to see a show. And Columbia will continue to be the place where people in their late 30s, then 40s, then 50s will talk about that great INXS show, and how the Capital City cannot get a decent band to come into town.