By Colin Kirkland
The promise of “special guests” at Williamsburg’s Brooklyn Bowl is almost always worth taking seriously.
On this recent random Wednesday, a sold-out crowd is settling into the booming sound of Smith & Watt Steakhouse, a 10-piece cover band led by wunderkind producer Andrew Watt and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer (and Will Ferrell look-alike) Chad Smith, when a familiar figure bursts on stage.
With charmingly erratic dance moves and an impressive vocal grit, “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon surprises the Bowl audience with a spirited rendition of The Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues.”
“Let it roll, baby, roll!” he belts.
“All night long!” the crowd shouts back.
Shapiro in 2022 (Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images for New York Public Radio)
The Brooklyn native, however, is only warming the Bowl’s stage for a night of more unannounced revelry: Black Thought freestyling over The Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” pedal-steel prodigy Robert Randolph busting through a cover of Hendrix’s “Purple Haze,” and The Black Crowes’ lead singer Chris Robinson crying out a grisly version of Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” that snaked in and out of Sabbath’s sinister classic, “War Pigs.”
This kind of show — at once shocking and satiating — falls under what Brooklyn Bowl co-founder Charley Ryan calls “one of those magical nights where the roof can lift off.”
According to Ryan — as well as Bowl co-founder, filmmaker and concert-promoter Peter Shapiro — there have been plenty of magical nights among the Bowl’s 15 years and 5,000-plus shows.
A short list of examples: Adele debuting “Rolling in the Deep” for a gaggle of Columbia Records interns; Paul Simon sitting in with Aaron Neville at Neville’s 75th birthday celebration; Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings in their prime, ringing in the New Year; Robert Plant playing “California” during a spur-of-the-moment midnight show; or The Roots’ Captain Kirk guitar-battling Elvis Costello.
It’s all gone down here, in the 900-cap room in Williamsburg, a 143-year-old 23,000 square-foot ironworks foundry Shapiro and Ryan discovered in 2007 after years of searching for the perfect spot to fortify their vision: a fully interactive space fusing quality live music, delicious food and drinks, visual media and what Ryan calls “the secret ingredient” — bowling.
‘Disney for adults’
“Some of the inspiration came from New Orleans,” says Shapiro. “We wanted it to feel a bit like Jazz Fest late-night and the Rock ‘N’ Bowl down there. But it’s also like an old school Coney Island funhouse.”
That funhouse — described by some of its earliest patrons as “Disney for adults” — includes fried chicken from New York’s Blue Ribbon restaurant group, draft beers from Brooklyn Brewery (the Bowl’s next door neighbor), rows of high-definition IMAG screens built to capture and project in-house performances, and the world’s first L.E.E.D.-certified bowling alley, with 16 string-operated lanes that cut down on energy and eradicate the audible grind of standard pin-setting machinery.
The whole place prides itself on being environmentally friendly — an ideal born at Wetlands Preserve, Shapiro and Ryan’s 1990s-era Tribeca-based music hub, which was rooted in environmental activism. The Bowl has LED stage lights that use 90 percent less energy than the typical draw; the stage itself is made of recycled truck tires; and the venue runs on 100 percent wind-powered electricity.
This dedication to environmentally friendly design is what Ryan and Shapiro say led to an unexpected, albeit helpful, wave of press upon opening, stoking curiosity and persuading people to travel to an area of New York that the masses still considered “out there” in 2009.
“When we opened there was no Wythe Hotel, no William Vale, nothing like that,” says Shapiro, who remembers that no more than 30 people would walk by the venue over the course of a typical day.
“Brooklyn was still a myth that was turning into a reality,” adds Ryan.
However, that would all change within a year, as gentrification, and the eventual Disneyfication of Williamsburg’s waterfront streets would begin to take hold. New businesses popped up and luxury buildings were erected, ultimately boosting prices and attracting more tourists.
“We get the blame, or the credit, sometimes, for instigating everything that followed,” says Ryan, reflecting on Williamsburg’s transformation. “If you want to give us the credit, I’ll take it, but the blame? No way.”
Jam bands, desert blues and kid bops
Shapiro says that despite the surrounding neighborhood’s socioeconomic transformation, the Bowl’s flagship location tries to “keep its head down” and maintain its original goal of showing 350,000 yearly guests a good time seven nights a week.
If anything, its evolving clientele may influence the ongoing diversification of Brooklyn Bowl’s programming, which now includes private events, galas, holiday parties, bar and bat mitzvahs, weddings and fundraisers, but also a wider variety of genres, artists, and experiences during live shows.
While the Bowl’s bread and butter has always been jam, funk, hip-hop and soul music, fans of more eclectic global music can now find a home here, according to longtime director of booking Lucas Sacks. For instance, Sacks has helped usher in a heightened interest in African music and desert blues by the likes of Taureg artists Bombino and Tinariwen, or Mali-based musicians like Fatoumata Diawara.
Unlike most of Brooklyn’s clubs, the Bowl also offers weekly programming for the borough’s little ones. Since 2014, Rock and Roll Playhouse — the largest national kid-friendly live concert series, founded by Shapiro himself — has performed interactive sets dedicated to the likes of Bob Marley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and more for sold-out crowds of addled kids and their equally addled parents.
“We produced what I believe was the first and only tribute to the music of Beyoncé for kids,” says Stephen Grybowski, Rock and Roll Playhouse’s executive director, looking back on one of his favorite Bowl shows. “[We] built out a band featuring musicians who play with icons like Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, Madonna, Talib Kweli, and Joey Bada$$…and the performance was over the top, covering Beyoncé’s full catalog.”
Over the past decade, Ryan and Shapiro have opened additional Brooklyn Bowl locations in Las Vegas, Nashville, Philadelphia and London (though the overseas venue has since closed), but Sacks says there are special benefits to operating the flagship Brooklyn location.
“Brooklyn, specifically, is a cultural hub,” he says. “Nationally and internationally known artists know we’re here, they know that they’ve seen or participated in really creative shows, and they know that’s a thing that can still happen.”
The Hold Steady at the Brooklyn Bowl (Photo by Marc Millman)
‘One of the most epic shows we’ve ever done’
Sacks says one of the best parts of his job is offering acclaimed musicians the chance to take a break from their typical gigs.
“There’s all these concepts that we’ll get creative with,” he says, having recently pitched “Late Show” bandleader Louis Cato on a full-band funk covers show in December. With no hesitation, Cato agreed.
“There are also so many creative people who moved to Williamsburg before the venue was even open and really cut their teeth in the Lower Side,” Sacks adds.
Like The Hold Steady, a Springsteen-inspired indie-rock outfit who played their first show as a nameless bar band at Arlene’s Grocery in 2003, and 13 years later launched their now-iconic annual four-night Brooklyn Bowl residency, “Massive Nights.”
“The event has become the cornerstone of our year,” lead singer Craig Finn tells Brooklyn Magazine. “Each year has been more successful than the last.”
Questlove on the decks at Bowl Train (Courtesy Brooklyn Bowl)
But no show encapsulated Brooklyn Bowl’s initial rise more than the seven-year run of the “Bowl Train” residency, which featured Roots drummer and pop culture avatar Questlove pairing his personal collection of obscure funk vinyl with video footage from the musical variety show “Soul Train” while late-night crowds danced, bowled and hung out till close.
Back in 2016, Questlove turned “Bowl Train” into something else entirely, tweeting out a fake ransom note fans had to decipher in order to uncover the night’s headliner.
Eventually, people cracked the code, forming a queue around the block to catch a glimpse of Usher.
Alongside members of Solange’s band, Blood Orange’s band, and other distinguished local acts, Questlove delivered a two-and-a-half hour set with Usher at the helm, who sang all Prince covers. It cost concertgoers just $10 at the door.
A typical night at the atypical ‘Bowl Train’ party in 2012, hosted by Questlove (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)
“It was a wild experience to work that Prince cover show from the back end,” says Sacks. “Feeling the intensity and the build of what was going to happen, and then looking out at everyone when they came on — it was one of the most epic shows we’ve ever done.”
The Bowl rolls on
To celebrate its 15-year anniversary, Brooklyn Bowl has filled its roster with a series of anniversary shows by some of its all-time favorite acts, including Chad Smith, Grace Potter, Lettuce, Stetsasonic and Cool Cool Cool with Funk You.
On December 14, Louis Cato will close out the series with his show “Nothing But The Funk,” infusing Brooklyn and a lucky 900 people with some of the sounds that lie closest to The Bowl’s soul, its sonic bread and butter.