NORFOLK - A crowd of about 50 people, brought together through e-mails, text messages and a MySpace bulletin, rallied in front of Granby Theater on Thursday in a show of support for the venue, whose closing was announced after a shooting there Wednesday.
Signing petitions and holding signs that read "We Need Your Support," demonstrators lamented the closing and expressed their loyalty to a cherished nightspot.
"I want to keep this place open," said Andy Vollmer, a 23-year-old Virginia Beach resident who usually came to Granby
Theater on Saturday nights.
"It was a great atmosphere."
He and his friend Jay Johnson, 26, said that the "half a dozen times" they came to some of the hip-hop-themed parties that went on there, they never felt unsafe or out of place. "It's taking away a place for all kinds of culture, from hip-hop to Asian nights," Vollmer said.
The restored historic venue's management welcomed both high art and pop culture events.
Granby Theater has held performances by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and the Virginia Arts Festival, as well as a taping of an episode of MTV's "My Super Sweet 16" and an after-party for Oscar-winning actor-musician
Jamie Foxx. It was the rare venue in Hampton Roads appropriate for both a reverent "Salute to American Heroes" and a rollicking album release party for Virginia Beach star Pharrell Williams.
When it wasn't hosting such special events, Granby Theater was seen as a choice venue for nightclubbing on Granby Street and all of Hampton Roads.
It appeared Thursday that the Granby Theater would no longer host nightclub events. An owner, Robert F.
"Bobby" Wright, said Thursday he was planning to talk to city officials about fulfilling obligations to hold other events. The Virginia Arts Festival, for example, was scheduled to present four concerts there.
The Granby Theater had a capacity of up to 800, a no-smoking policy and a posh decor that included a crimson-and-gold color scheme, couches and bird's-eye-view VIP booths that overlooked the levels below.
It boasted one of the largest dance floors and most sophisticated sound systems in Hampton Roads.
"I lived in Miami and New York, and the club reminded me of being in a venue in one of those cities," said Joe Fu, a DJ at WNRJ-FM 106.1.
"It just had that feel to it. No other club in the area had aerial acrobatics. There was stuff there like you'd see in Vegas.
You could just have this unbelievable experience there."
For the past month, Fu has hosted a Friday night party featuring "rhythmic Top 40" music - a format almost entirely hip-hop-based. "I may have played one rock song, if that," he said.
"Every week the party got larger and larger. It was a mixed crowd. We never had any incident.
It was just the biggest, baddest club in the area."
One of its main attractions was its Euro Night, which featured the house and techno forms of electronic dance music. Because the Saturday night event was one of few to feature such music locally, it quickly won a large, loyal following.
"I brought my mom and my aunt here," said Rob "DNA" Rivera, a Virginia Beach DJ who said he was in his "mid-30s."
"I'd bring them here - my mom is 58 and my aunt is in her 50s - here on Saturday nights or Asian nights and they would sit in the VIP and have a great time. It gave people something other than the Oceanfront.
It revitalized this area, and Granby Street."
"There's nothing like it on Granby," said Vitali Servutas, who organized the Saturday party. "We were playing house music, and a lot of people don't get to hear that on Granby Street.
Something like that is going to be hard to replace. We're all shocked and confused and are not sure where to go from here."
The theater was reborn in 2005, 17 years after it had shut its doors.
It opened in 1916 and became a thriving theater, but by the 1960s its fortunes had slowed along with most of Granby Street. At one point the theater showed adult movies.
Wright invested millions into the theater beginning in 2002.
It was part of a revival of Granby Street and downtown Norfolk, where restaurants and condos
were springing up left and right.
The Fuzz Band, a local group that has played for troops in Iraq and London, had just moved its "Fuzzy Wednesdays" jam session to Granby Theater. The Fuzz Band plays rock, soul, rhythm and blues, hip-hop and other styles
and has a strong local following.
"It was a place where you could have techno and a singer or a premium rapper," said Paul Saunders, The Fuzz Band's manager. "Where else would Jamie Foxx go when he came here? Now we just don't have a place for an A-list artist in a non concert setting.
A downtown definitely needs a big venue like that.
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