Live At the Wellmont - NOT!

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Restore a movie theater dating back to the 1920s and turn it into a concert venue to boost the local economy. And it was a good idea to do so with the Wellmont Theatre in Montclair, New Jersey, as it became the premier attraction in suburban Essex County. But the restoration of the interior was not quite up to par, and earlier this week a large piece of plaster fell from the ceiling during a concert and landed on two concertgoers. Both were treated and released at a local hospital, and the Wellmont remains indefinitely closed pending a review of the accident and how it can be properly repaired. No one knows how long it will be closed, which casts doubt on its immediate concert schedule.

The Wellmont has hosted many acts since it opened as a concert hall a couple of years ago, many either veteran acts who can no longer fill Madison Square Garden or indie-rock acts who will never fill the Garden. In the age of Gaga, that's a good thing. But the work on the interior has always been called into question, and I've heard anecdotal reports of similar incidents less serious than the one that just occurred. It's yet another sad example of how not only we in America can no longer build things of good quality, we can't even competently restore the high-quality old buildings we have. But then American engineering has long been overrated, considering achievements like the fuzzy pictures of the Hubble telescope (which required a post-launch repair in space to set it right) and the two collapses of the roof of the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan from snow.

So what is a concert at the Wellmont like? Don't ask me, I've never been to one. Although the theatre was meant to help the local economy, I haven't been able to go for reasons that boil down to the general economy still needing a boost. But I heard that the shows there are - or, rather, were - good.