Plugged back in: Cabooze and Myth Live are hosting concerts again after closure threats

No, this is not a leftover music news clip from the year 2006: The Cabooze and Myth Live nightclubs are each hosting concerts this summer.

Both storied, sometimes troubled venues that were never quite loved but persisted nonetheless — and hosted many memorable concerts along the way — the gritty Minneapolis rock club and the flashy Maplewood strip-mall music hall have each bounced back after rumors of their demise were widely circulated.

The Cabooze reopened in spotty form after the pandemic but has mostly been shuttered since late 2022. Previous owners the After Midnight Group (which also ran the Cowboy Jack’s chain) finally sold the 50-year-old venue to a new ownership team.

While there have been several violent incidents in recent months outside the venue and its fully reopened adjoining bar, the Joint — including a shooting in early May that killed an Eagan firefighter — a new team is in place that revived the club’s website and brought in a new in-house talent booker, who sounds confident that the venue is on the rebound.

“I intend to bring new life to the plaza, the patio and the Cabooze itself,” said Jake Whaley, citing the club’s outdoor spaces in addition to its main 1,000-person indoor hub, a longtime staple near the intersection of Cedar and Franklin avenues in Minneapolis’ Seward neighborhood.

Whaley came to the Cabooze with a background booking electronic and psychedelic acts with his company Low & High. That describes some of what has been added to the club’s calendar, including an after-party for the Breakaway Music Festival on June 29.

This weekend, the Cabooze will welcome California rapper Mickey Avalon on Friday and the Strictly R&B Takeover show with Gemini Szn on Saturday. The first show scheduled on its plaza — which can hold several thousand people depending on the layout — is a dubstep-flavored dance show with Tsuruda x Onhell on July 13. And in a nice nod to the Cabooze’s roots as a haven for Minneapolis West Bank blues acts, it will also host a tribute to Spider John Koerner featuring Charlie Parr and more on the afternoon of June 23.

Whaley promised lots more, too, including 50th-anniversary celebrations this fall and even some renovations to the old, rugged, but functional room, which has hosted the likes of James Brown, Buddy Guy and Foghat and even an impromptu appearance by some of the Rolling Stones with Peter Tosh in its ’70s-’80s heyday.

“We are planning an extensive remodel for the future which will coexist with the historical elements inside of the Cabooze while improving the layout and accommodating new cliental,” Whaley said via email. He and other venue representatives declined to talk or answer further questions.

“The renovations have no set date but have been the topic of several core meetings,” he added.

As for Myth Live, the venue that ambitiously remade a former Just for Feet megastore site into a 3,000-plus-capacity concert hub in 2005, it went through some ownership changes in the 2010s but has been run by the same operators since before the pandemic. It never actually closed, aside from the COVID-19 lockdown months.

However, in 2022, an investment firm that owns the property unveiled plans to raze Myth to make room for a 241-unit apartment building on the site, which sits across a couple of parking lots from the Maplewood Mall.

Just as she promised to do then, Myth’s owner and operator Kim Brokke has been in litigation with the landlord making them honor a lease that she said is good for another nine years.

“We are open and continue to fight,” Brokke said.

Myth already opened its doors this week to a promotional “secret show” with country station K102-FM on Wednesday. It also will host a boxing event on Saturday.

In the coming months, the venue also has booked several concerts by regional Mexican acts, including Banda el Recodo and La Adictiva on June 28, Los Dos Carnales on July 12 and Bronco on Aug. 3. Rock shows will return starting Aug. 20, when punk vets NOFX’s farewell tour is slated to land there, followed by Testament on Sept. 26, Coal Chamber and Fear Factory on Sept. 27 and Rammstein “singer” Till Lindemann on Oct. 5.

“We have great shows scheduled and continue to book more,” Brokke said. “We hope that people will not believe the false rumors about us closing and will come out and have a great time.”

Where: 913 Cedar Av. S., Mpls. Website: cabooze.com.

Where: 3090 Southlawn Drive, Maplewood. Website: mythlive.com.