When blues-rocker Tab Benoit took the stage outside Berglund Center April 7, it broke a bit of a drought for Roanoke’s largest music venue.
The Berglund hadn’t hosted a concert since the COVID-19 shutdown last year. And an outside show? Berglund hadn’t done one on that scale since it presented some shows at Elmwood Park a few years ago.
So, by all accounts, there was an apparent learning curve. Benoit, hitting after co-headliner Samantha Fish, was supposed to go until 10:30 p.m., then play an encore — or so show organizers thought. Berglund Center’s general manager, Robyn Schon, said that she was not aware that the city’s noise ordinance shuts down the action at 10 p.m.
In an email exchange this week, Schon wrote that “ a local resident called and complained. … Due to the ordinance, we asked that he not perform the encore and he complied.”
That left multiple patrons sore, and they voiced frustration on social media. (Your columnist was not there, having decamped, newly vaxxed, to the Tennessee family home.)
