It’s official: Downtown Oakland is now home to the Bay Area’s nicest
popular music venue. Huge and opulent, with art deco detailing that
makes it look like a Moorish temple, the Fox Theatre has got everything
you could ask for in a venue: gargoyles, a stunning interior, terraced
seating with incredible sightlines, a capacious balcony, lots of bars,
easy access to BART, and ample space for the projected 1,500-2,800
patrons who will attend a spate of A-list shows in February (including
Social Distortion, Stephen Marley, and Cake). Located about a block
from the swank new Uptown development (665 residential units, plus
retail), it will turn Oakland into the epicenter of Bay Area musical
entertainment — riots be damned.
It’s been a long time coming. Since former Mayor Jerry Brown
unveiled his “10K” plan ten years ago, Oakland residents have been
waiting — and waiting, and waiting, and waiting — for a
revitalized downtown. All of a sudden, it is here. Just one month in
advance of the official February 5 grand opening of developer Phil
Tagami’s newly restored Fox Theatre, the surrounding four-block radius
of downtown looked dazzling — if not quite complete. People were
hanging out in front of the Uptown club; the restaurant Flora bustled
inside of the building that once housed the Floral Depot; the Uptown
apartments, with their private gymnasiums and cobblestone walkways,
looked like Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The Fox, which began life as a
first-run movie house in 1928, degenerated into a venue for soft-core
porn flicks in the late ’60s, and closed in 1970, will be the
centerpiece of this transformed neighborhood.
The theater’s 39-year dormancy (during which time mushrooms
apparently grew through the floor) and multimillion-dollar restoration
ultimately proved salutary. It now offers many things that the
neighboring Paramount does not — not only in terms of aesthetics
and capaciousness, but in its flexibility. In addition to being the new
flotilla leader for Berkeley concert promoters Another Planet
Entertainment, it also will house the Oakland School of the Arts by
day. The Fox celebrated its inaugural on Saturday with a concert by
soul balladeer Al Green, who threw roses at the audience and played a
55-minute set that included most of his greatest hits. Presented by One
California Bank, it was a chance for the dignitaries of Oakland to
marvel at the new wraparound theater with its many bars and courtyards,
its terra cotta façade and its glittering blade sign. The crowd
adored Al Green, and Al Green loved his audience (although he booked
off the stage with no encore). But mostly, we loved Oakland and its new
crown jewel. For one evening, at least, it was enough to take
everyone’s minds off the disatrous events of the days before.
