The Daily Iowan
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2024
THE INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA COMMUNITY SINCE 1868
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CELEBRATES
Longtime and brand-new visitors attended the bar’s 50th anniversary show. Madison Schuler News Reporter
to the decades of rich performances the stage has seen, the music venue has news@dailyiowan.com cemented itself as a local staple. Riley Dunn Since it opened in 1974 as Gabe’s and Digital Editor Walker’s, the music venue has hosted a riley.dunn@dailyiowan.com variety of artists. It has also undergone Vibrant music reverberated down the several major shifts, including different rickety flight of stairs, drowning out the owners and multiple name changes. Pete McCarthy, the bar’s general buzz of conversation as five local bands manager and booking agent, shared took the stage at Gabe’s. Musiclovers pac- that despite the different iterations ked together near the foot of the stage, Gabe’s has gone through, the music swaying and dancing to each guitar riff venue has never diverged from its original and vocal performance. purpose: connecting the community throDimmed lights and the smell of ugh live music. cigarette smoke filled the venue as conBeing a part of Gabe’s for 12 years, certgoers gathered to celebrate 50 years McCarthy said the previous owner approof history in one of Iowa’s most acclaimed ached him and Scott Kading, the current dive bars. From the unspeakable things owner, to see if the two would take over happening in the closet-sized bathroom Gabe’s and revive the music venue in 2012.
“It was really bad,” McCarthy said. “It was in bad shape. They weren’t doing any shows. It was really run-down. The owners really just kind of let it go.” McCarthy said the new owners and management quickly got to work, turning Gabe’s back into a vibrant space to host shows for the community. McCarthy said over the years, Gabe’s has diversified the music scene in Iowa City from when it first opened. “Our music is all over the board. I think Gabe’s used to play a lot of the heavier hard rock…but there’ll be weeks where we do DJs, and we’ll have a heavy metal show, and we’ll have an indie rock show,” McCarthy said. “I think that we’ve really diversified it and really GABE’S | 2A
INSIDE UNDERDOG TO OLYMPIC MEDALIST Iowa Track and Field alum and U.S. Olympian Brittany Brown went from a low-recruited sprinter coming out of high school to a bronze medal finish at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
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APPRECIATING LITERARY ART WITH AUDIOBOOKS With doom scrolling, cognitive overload, and TikTok brain, it’s no wonder our attention spans have gotten shorter, and reading has become more difficult.
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MASTODON REMAINS FOUND IN IOWA Community volunteers and researchers at the University of Iowa came together to preserve history and make the discovery a life time.
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