Volume 29 Issue 1 | September 2023

MAINLY CLUBS
Hugh’s
NEW Room
COLIN STORY
In March of 2020 – while COVID anxiety was swirling
through Toronto, but just before lockdown protocols
were announced and enacted – news broke that
Hugh’s Room Live would be leaving their Dundas West
location, having failed to come to terms with their
landlord in lease negotiations. It was a major blow for
the city’s club scene.
On the move from Dundas W. to east of the Don; Broadview
Place, a heritage building, was designed by E.J. Lennox, the same
Toronto architect who designed Old City Hall and Casa Loma.
In 2001, Richard Carson opened Hugh’s Room on Dundas West,
naming it in memory of his brother Hugh, a former folk musician
who had dreamed of opening his own performance venue before
his death from cancer in 1999. It had been an important venue,
with programming that emphasized folk, blues and roots music,
including performances from Buffy Sainte-Marie, Joni Mitchell and
Gordon Lightfoot.
Grim though the news seemed, especially in the context of other
pandemic-venue closures, the Hugh’s Room Live organization
continued to present live music starting in 2021, albeit on other stages;
3030 Dundas, the Tranzac, Paradise Theatre and Revival have all functioned
as partner venues to the organization, playing host to Hugh’s
Room Live shows.
HUGH'S ROOM
thewholenote.com September 2023 | 19