Musicians who perform at mall have to find another place for concerts

Every Friday and Saturday night, Bobby King feels the rush of going on stage.

He suits up — he favors a red blazer — and then grabs his guitar and his cowboy hat. He leaves his home in New Bern and heads to Twin Rivers Mall to meet his band mates and fans.

Every time is a surprise; he doesn’t know whom he’ll play with or whom he’ll sing to. But it doesn’t matter, he says. He’s there to strum and sing bass.

“I do ‘Waltzing Across Texas’ and do my best to sound like Ernest Tubb. A lot of people say I hit it.

“A lot of us used to play in dance halls and bars and now we play here, in the old Brody’s storefront,” King said Monday. “Or at least we used to.”

On Friday, King and his fellow musicians were told they had to leave the mall, he said. There’s remodeling to be done at the mall and no place for them to go, he said.

“The manager from the mall was just as nice as she could be about it, but she said we had to have our … microphones and stuff out by 6 o’clock Sunday,” King said. “So we did.”

Calls seeking comment from the mall’s management staff were not returned Monday.

The group of musicians has been gathering at the mall for four years, King said.

“First we were out near the center at the pit, then we moved to Belk’s — and we’d been in the old Brody’s for about three months,” King said.

“All of us are antiques and our fans are senior citizens,” said King, who is 75.

“When you talk about moving somewhere, you don’t know how many will be able to follow,” he said. “They feel safe at the mall. We average probably 150 people in the crowd, but on a good night, you’ll get double that.”

Lilly Lucier of Vanceboro has been coming to mall concerts for the last three years.

“It draws people that are up in years,” she said. “We bring our own lawn chairs and it’s free and we love it. You get used to having a social life with people that you see every week.”

The philosophy behind the show was a simple one.

“They didn’t turn anybody away,” Lucier said. “Nobody had to be professionals. It was basically if you thought you could play it, have at it.“

King says he’s used to playing with three or four fiddlers beside him and just as many other players picking banjos. They play mostly country or gospel music and mix in a little bluegrass.

“I used to blow the harmonica, too. But since I got a defibrillator, I don’t have the wind for it,” he said.

King is looking for another place to host the weekly concerts, which usually last about two hours. He has meetings set up this week to talk to several people and he hopes to find a place shortly.

“When you get used to something being there and you know other people are depending on it, too, you hate to see it gone,” he said.