Discovery Music series lived up to its name for Avett Brothers

After the first clap of the cymbal, after the first plink of the banjo a second later and the first scream from the crowd that had rushed the Attucks Theatre stage a second after that, my friends and I looked at each other wide-eyed.

"Who the heck are these guys?"

It was 2006, and the Avett Brothers were playing the Norfolk theater as part of the Discovery Music Series, a dirt-cheap program that allows music lovers to uncover upcoming bands.

The Avetts, a folk-rock band from North Carolina, combine the themes and instruments of backwater country with alt-rock sensibilities. The brothers, so young and without pretense that they had a curry dinner at the home of the series' assistant director beforehand, gave the audience of a few hundred a treat.

Less than two years later, the Avett Brothers played the Attucks again as part of the Discovery Music Series, but this time to a full house bred on word-of-mouth. They commanded the crowd so efficiently that at times there was complete silence. It was one of the most genuine concerts I've seen.

The next time the Avetts played Norfolk, it was at the much larger Harrison Opera House, another of the venues run by the city of Norfolk. Again the crowd, encouraged by friends' glowing reviews, knew what it was getting, and the show was fantastic. To top it off, the band reportedly gave an impromptu encore in the parking lot.

Since then, the Avett Brothers have put out what was considered one of the best albums of 2009, "I and Love and You." They have played big clubs and small. They have become critical darlings.

And on Tuesday, the Avett Brothers are again returning to Norfolk. This time, they're playing across town, at the 9,000-seat Ted Constant Convocation Center at Old Dominion University. This time, tickets are as much as $40 - at least four times what I paid to see them a couple of years ago. And this time, the band will perform to an audience that will know the words to nearly every song, not a crowd expecting to be surprised.

The show at The Ted isn't produced by the city-operated Seven Venues - it's a Global Spectrum event - but make no mistake: The concert at ODU marks an odd success for the Attucks. And here's why: the Discovery Music Series has lived up to its name.

For the past 10 seasons at the Attucks, staff members have selected artists who were worthy of being discovered, perhaps none more so than the Avetts. The series has given local audiences a chance to see up-and-coming bands before anyone else and do it in a small venue and at a low price. That is the holy grail of street cred for music fans.

Yes, Amos Lee and Grace Potter and Blind Pilot and The Low Anthem have played the Attucks in recent years and gone on to larger audiences. But the Avetts are the biggest and now are playing on the biggest stage.

The reality of being a music fan in Norfolk is often that you get a shot to see performers when they're relative unknowns - or when they're giant and the tickets cost a lot. Often, there is no middle ground.

"They get expensive too fast," said Scott Warren, who used to book acts for the Attucks' series and now runs a venue in Cleveland.

The Norfolk audience often is a year behind musically, he said, and many up-and-coming bands draw only about half the crowd they can get in other cities.

The idea behind the Discovery Music Series was that it would give fans a chance to see performers early in their career. And it would do so fairly cheaply, while giving the refurbished Attucks a role to play in the city's entertainment plan. A group would start with the Attucks, gain a fan base and move up to progressively larger venues, such as the Harrison Opera House, Chrysler Hall and Scope.

Warren said he doubted

the Avetts, without playing the Attucks, would have been able to draw an audience big enough to play the Ted.

The Discovery Music Series may be struggling - at least in its current iteration that brings in blues and indie acts. Some years, I have had season tickets. Other times, I've gone occasionally. And other times I've skipped the entire lineup. Financially, its viability seems to be in question every season. But from an artistic side, with a few years of hindsight, the model has proven it worked.

With each clap of the cymbal, plink of the banjo and scream of the crowd on Tuesday, the music series in the historic theater will deliver as promised, which could be easy to forget as fans sing along in the glistening venue on the other side of the city.

Mike Gruss, (757) 446-2277, mike.gruss@pilotonline.com, PilotOnline.com/gruss