Subkirke in the South Bend Tribune
Staff Writer Ken Bradford wrote a pretty nice article on Subkirke for Sunday’s South Bend Tribune.
Sarah Sanders couldn’t believe it.
She’s been a huge fan of the Great Lake Swimmers.And there she was on a Thursday night in October, just minutes from her home in South Bend, in the third row for a Great Lake Swimmers concert.For 12 bucks.
In a church.
What are the odds of that?
Actually, if you’re a fan of alt-country/roots/folk music, your odds of seeing your favorite band locally are better now than ever.
That’s because Subkirke, an experiment in outreach to college-age music fans, has opened at the South Bend Christian Reformed Church on North Hickory Road.
“It was a collective brainstorm,” Subkirke organizer David Banga says. “We talked about how we can be useful in the community. One of the things that’s missing is a venue of this sort.”
The big-time greatest-hits acts have the Morris. The head-bangers have Club Fever. The cover bands have the bars.
What Subkirke — a phonetic acronym for SBCRC — offers is a 500-seat place with great acoustics for quieter bands with fans who really want to hear and study the music.
Banga believes South Bend, with its colleges and location, is a perfect place for what his church is trying to do.
Last fall, he managed to snag the Great Lake Swimmers for what would have been an off-day between concerts in Chicago and Grand Rapids.
“You can sit in a hotel room for two nights, or you can come meet your fans in a place like this,” he says.
Already, the word has gotten around that there’s a stopping-off place between Illinois and Michigan.
“There’s a lot of interest,” he says. “Some really well-known national acts are interested in coming here.”
If you haven’t heard of the Swimmers, that’s part of the problem.
In other parts of this country, the Toronto band is really big. Before its South Bend concert, it had a gig at Lincoln Hall in Chicago, and it headed to Europe for another tour in November.
The band’s played on NPR and you can find a clip online of singer Tony Dekker being interviewed by Brian Williams on MSNBC.
But the Swimmers haven’t toured here. There isn’t a local radio station dedicated to its genre of music.
If you knew the group, it was a sign you did your own homework.
The first Subkirke show, Samantha Crain and the Midnight Shivers, drew a small crowd on a Notre Dame football game night.
The church breaks even if it can sell 150 tickets for a band such as the Great Lake Swimmers, and it did, Banga says.
“And the average age in there is about 22,” he says. “We’re hitting the age group we’re looking for.”
Four seniors from the Trinity School at Greenlawn lowered that age average during the Swimmers’ concert.
“I’m really glad they have this,” Theresa Behrens, who was there with Yana Jones, Kelsey Timm and Kelsi Schmidt, says.
They’re all fans of the Swimmers and know the music well. “One of my friends actually covers some of their songs,” Schmidt says.
Because the place is smoke- and alcohol-free, people younger than 21 are welcome.
And there certainly is nothing of the honky-tonk feel at Subkirke.
The audience sits in a large room on padded pews or folding chairs. The band performs under a banner that proclaims, “Blessed.”
It’s a respectful crowd that waits until the final note has ended to applaud. It’s polite, almost to a fault.
There are no stoners yelling, “Free Bird.” No waitresses taking drink orders during a ballad.
After the two concerts in the fall, Subkirke took a two-month hiatus.
The main target audience is college students, and Banga wants to schedule when it’s best for them.
“We did two shows last semester, we’re going to do three this semester and likely five in the fall semester,” he says. “There may be a summer concert or two, but mostly just when the students are here, and when it isn’t final exam time.”
He suggests keeping an eye on Subkirke’s Web site.
He says word about concerts spreads mainly through campus publications and on The Globe, WGCS-FM (91.1), the radio station at Goshen College.
Dekker, the Swimmers’ singer and songwriter, says his band appreciates playing in venues like Subkirke.
Have they played in churches before?
“Yes, we have,” he says. “In fact, we like to record in places like this.”
Churches are built to allow sound to carry, and Dekker says the acoustics at Subkirke fit the Swimmers’ needs.
And although the Swimmers’ songs don’t typically have negative messages, anyway, Dekker says he didn’t feel inhibited in putting together the show here.
Instead, it gave him more options. “We did play a few of our more quiet songs here,” he says, “because of the space.”
Whatever the set list, fans such as Sarah Sanders came to the concert eager and left satisfied.
“It is so awesome to have them here,” she says.
She’s been listening to the Swimmers for two or three years and buys its CDs.
“I was really excited because we don’t have to drive to Chicago for a show like this,” she says.
Will she be back to Subkirke?
“If they bring in more good shows,” she says. “I’ve already e-mailed some suggestions.”