LJS | “Duffy’s Tavern marks 25 years of music”
For 75 years, Duffy's Tavern has been Lincoln's downtown neighborhood bar, a place where, for decades, you could stop in for a sandwich and beer and cajole the help.
Last year, Complex.com named Duffy's the best college bar in the country, reflecting its popularity among students and twentysomethings who flock there for, among other things, its outdoor fire pit and famous fishbowls.
But at its heart for the past quarter century, Duffy's has been a music venue.
"We were named the No. 1 college bar, and we've got the fishbowl, college, Husker game day things," said Duffy's owner Scott Hatfield. "But at the end of the day, when you ask people about Duffy's, they'll say it's a music venue. Music is really a large part of our identity as Duffy's. It's what people use to identify us, and it's how we identify ourselves."
Hatfield, who worked at the bar during his college years in the 1990s, bought Duffy's four years ago from Reg McMeen. McMeen started offering music at the bar at 1412 O St. in 1987 after the closing of the Drumstick, Lincoln's most prominent rock venue of the 1980s.
In its early years, Duffy's drew a number of acts that went on to great fame, such as The Flaming Lips and most notably Nirvana, which played the tiny club twice.
Dave Rabe took over the booking duties at Duffy's in 1991, just after Nirvana's second appearance there. He intended for show No. 3 to be part of the tour supporting the band's major label debut, "Nevermind."
"I did book Nirvana," Rabe said. "Then they got huge in five seconds and their guarantee was way more than we could handle. They canceled on us."
Rabe had no trouble finding bands to fill the Duffy's bills, whether national or local, such as Mercy Rule and The Millions, Lincoln bands that signed to major labels in the 1990s and packed the house when they played.
In 1995, Andy Fairbairn moved from KRNU radio to start booking acts at Duffy's and stayed until 2007. For a brief period in the middle of that run, the bands moved next door to Mudslide Slim's, a bar run by Duffy's in the space now occupied by Bodega's Alley.
"We had the great legacy, great reputation around the country when I started," Fairbairn said. "It was up to me that we didn't have a dropoff. The bands weren't doing that good at that point. It was one of the down times."
The move to Mudslide Slim's re-energized things, allowing flexibility in show times and days. When the bar was sold, the shows moved back to Duffy's, with covers being charged at the door between the two rooms.
"We had to prove bands could still hold their own," he said.
Soon enough, the cover charge was back at the front door for bands that included alternative/college rock and extended to the likes of country's Dale Watson and The Derailers and roots rock nutjob Mojo Nixon.
And for years, the bands either played on Wednesday or Sunday nights.
"The Duffy's thing forever has been Wednesday and Sunday nights," Rabe said. "The bands loved it. They knew if they were coming through on a Sunday, they could get a show in Lincoln. People learned to just go to Duffy's on Wednesday or go to Duffy's on Sunday; it's going to be something good."
Duffy's still is a Wednesday and Sunday place for music, but in the past couple of years, the venue has begun to offer occasional shows on Thursday and Friday nights. They're part of Duffy's effort to expand the audience for music.
"We just pay the bands upfront," Hatfield said. "The idea is, in tough economic times or in any economic times really, it's hard to get people to come out and pay $5 or $10 for a show. Having free shows or, actually shows where we pay for it, expands the audience. Then we see them coming back."
Along with adding the "free" shows, Duffy's has redone its band room, in part to accommodate the structure housing a staircase for the Parrish Project upstairs. The stage was moved from against the O Street windows to the north side of the room, and the wall between the bar's two rooms was opened.
"Instead of having a show that maybe 75 people could get into that room and see it, now all 225 people that can get in here can have a sight line," Hatfield said.
While much of the "who played there" attention goes to national touring acts, such as Brian Jonestown Massacre, The BellRays, House of Large Sizes and others, Duffy's has stalwartly booked Lincoln and regional bands since it started offering music. That includes a little kid from Omaha who used to turn up playing in front of a stack of amplifiers taller than he was. His name: Conor Oberst. Oberst, of course, went on to national acclaim as Bright Eyes.
Supporting local bands is natural for a venue like Duffy's. But to do so for a quarter century says something about the Lincoln music scene, Hatfield said.
"For a city of 250,000 to have as many bands as we have -- and the talent generated here is pretty impressive -- we're lucky," Hatfield said. "People in Lincoln might take that for granted. It's not common to have such a continually thriving music scene for such a long period of time."
These days the names of the bands playing Duffy's aren't as big as they might have been a decade or two ago. In large part, that's because of the digitally driven leveling of the music business and the explosion in the number of bands on tour.
Each month, Hatfield said, he and talent booker Dub Wardlaw sort through hundreds of emails to choose bands. While they likely aren't household names, he said, great music still comes from the Duffy's stage.
"There are some amazing things that happen here on Sundays and Wednesdays," Hatfield said. "You don't know who the next Nirvana is going to be. What we do get is some real talent from some of these kids who are working their way across the country playing small venues like Duffy's trying to make it. Or just trying to make it to the next venue."
It's impossible to know what will be happening when Duffy's turns 100 in another 25 years. But for the foreseeable future, it's going to filled with bands.
"In a very competitive environment, where it's hard to do live music. We're going to continue to offer original music, not cover stuff, to people in Lincoln," Hatfield said. "We want to keep carrying the torch."
Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 402-473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.
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