Capitol Theatre

Historic theatre in the heart of downtown Greeneville that has been wonderfully renovated. I have been to a few live music events, plays and classic movies lately — always very enjoyable!

A crude dive bar masquerading as a theater/​performance venue, at least tonight for the concert I attended. The vast majority of the crowd was already sloppy drunk (perhaps as a result of the questionable decision by management to hawk moonshine and box wine along with the stale hot dogs and popcorn, apparently without regard to any cutoff point) by the time the opening band finished and Scott Miller and Bryn Davies came onstage. Few actually sat in their seats to listen to the music, or stopped talking long enough to realize there was even anyone performing (although they did manage to speak loudly enough to hear themselves over that pesky noise of the set). Eventually I began clocking it – someone got up every 90 seconds in the row in front of us, requiring other people to stand up to let them by. Roving groups leaned against the walls at the back and sides of the orchestra level and the balcony stairs (probably because they could no longer stand up), practically shouting at each other and sloshing their booze freely. I was just waiting for the puking to begin. While the crowd spewed plenty of «Whooooooos,» it was clearly not because they were into the music. No wonder Scott and Bryn gave up and wrapped up the set in not much over an hour. We left at that point, even though they typically do one or two encores, relieved that we didn’t have to walk out on the musicians in the middle of the set and show them even more disrespect than they’d already tolerated.
I’m all for having a good time and being part of an audience that is energized by the music and the atmosphere, but this was just pathetic. Security was practically non-​existent, and the sound was mixed so poorly that even had the drunks shut up, it still would have been a sorry evening. First and last visit to this joint.