Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood is more of a music hub than meets the eye.
Nestled among this district’s quirky sculptures and charming storefronts, music fans can find the headquarters of nonprofit Earshot Jazz, instrument shops like Dusty Strings Music Store & School, record stores like Jive Time Records, recording studios like Studio Litho, and of course, music venues like Nectar Lounge and High Dive.
Recently, the people behind the Nectar and High Dive decided to up Fremont’s musical ante even more. Nectar Lounge founder Jed Smithson, general manager Ken Stubblefield, and talent buyers and managers Mario Abata and Andy Palmer, have leased the former Brouwer’s Café space and are converting it into a new, larger-capacity home for High Dive’s operations. The new performance venue, rebranded as Hidden Hall, opens on April 18.
“ This is our last week at High Dive. After this, everything moves to Hall, which literally means all of the shows that were previously on sale at High Dive are moving to Hidden Hall,” Palmer said.
The journey to Hidden Hall began last June when Brouwer’s Café, with its stunning, two-story barroom and focus on craft beer, closed its doors after 19 years. The crew at Nectar and High Dive, always thinking about ways to expand their operations, took note of the vacancy just a couple blocks from their existing venues.
“We had an opportunity to get in there and we've all been to Brouwers before, but we had this moment where we walked in and had this like holy moly epiphany,” Palmer said.
This boxy, corrugated metal building in the heart of Fremont is, it turns out, the perfect performance space. Unassuming from the outside, walking through its doors is like stumbling upon a best-kept live music secret: A grandiose, already sound-proofed hall with a wrap-around mezzanine, beautiful stone walls, and heaps of atmosphere. It’s the ideal place to lose yourself in a concert.
The unexpected perfection of this space is where Hidden Hall gets its name, and the team behind it are leaning into the surprise and intimacy the space suggests. Along with continuing to book the cross-genre local and emerging acts High Dive has historically supported, they hope the larger footprint of the hall will allow them to book more national and international artists with a bigger draw.
“There's a thing in concerts called an 'underplay,' basically where you get to see an awesome artist in a room that's smaller than they would usually play. It gives like a special, intimate experience and we definitely see Hidden Hall as a premium space,” Palmer said.
Hidden Hall’s opening is good news for fans of jazz and jazz-adjacent genres, too. Nectar and High Dive have long supported jazz, funk, and jam band artists, and it looks like Hidden Hall will only expand that support.
In the coming months, Nectar Lounge will feature Ghost Note, Polyrhythmics spin-off Unsinkable Heavies, and Butcher Brown. Plus, the first official show at Hidden Hall is the quintessential Pacific Northwest jazz-funk collective, Skerik and McTuff, on April 18.
Three bookers are responsible for booking everything at Nectar and Hidden Hall, and each of them specializes in particular genres. Music that centers improvisation – like jazz, funk, and jam band music—is a special passion area for Palmer. After growing up playing piano and drums in school jazz bands, Palmer performed for a decade with rock-funk-jam group Nefarious Jones for a decade, which formed in 2002 while he was at University of Washington.
But it’s not just about Palmer’s taste, he books these styles for Nectar and High Dive’s loyal regulars. Palmer said that during the pandemic and afterwards, when most live music venues really struggled, it was the fans of jazz, funk, and jam band music that really made a point of coming to shows—and that kept Nectar Lounge and High Dive afloat.
“I think that there is a culture in jazz music, funk music, jam band music of people who [consider] live music very central to their lives. And so a lot of those people, a) find community with each other, b) find that community at Nectar and High Dive and Hidden Hall, and c) were often going to shows more than once or twice a week,” Palmer said. “I think that is part of why it's been so successful for us and they love us because they can find community at our clubs.”
That isn’t to say Hidden Hall won’t offer something for everyone. Palmer said the team is “genre agnostic” and strives to serve audiences across all “ages, genders, and races.” This year, they also hope to do some cross-programming between Nectar and Hidden Hall, as they’ve done in the past with the multi-day, multi-venue festivals PBJam Fest and Cascadia Winter Solstice.
When Hidden Hall opens its doors, it will offer superior lighting, sound, video production, and a better layout than the narrow and bottleneck-prone High Dive. The bottom floor of Hidden Hall will be standing room only, while the mezzanine will offer seating for guests. Every spot in the room will have good sightlines to the stage. Hidden Hall won’t be a restaurant like Brouwer’s, but it will feature craft cocktails and a selection of local craft beers in homage to the previous tenants.
As for the old High Dive space, emblazoned with its iconic neon diving lady—it’s currently up for sale, and Palmer and company hope it will continue to be a part of Fremont’s live music culture.
“ There has been live music in that space for 20 years,” Palmer said. “It's got a great legacy and a great history, and we hope to see live music continue in that space.”
