The Steamboat Pilot & Today

On Saturday, Sept. 13, Old Town Pub will present live music by Back Door Slam, a blues rock band from the Irish Sea’s Isle of Man.

Given that in the past year Back Door Slam has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and CBS’ The Early Show, that the band is on tour now with Lynyrd Skynyrd and Kid Rock, and that its set in Steamboat is directly preceded by a performance at the Telluride Blues & Brews Festival, it might seem unlikely for the trio to make a stop at OTP.

Kurt Vordermeier is well aware of that.

“To try to pull off a couple of big shows a year, which we’re going to try to do, this will be a test for that,” said Vordermeier, who took over the bulk of OTP’s booking responsibilities at the beginning of July. The Back Door Slam show will require some extra sound and lighting equipment, a small stage and a cover charge — uncommon elements for live music at the Pub — but Vordermeier thinks the young trio is worth the trouble.

“I personally was just blown away by the music that they played,” he said, taking a break from working a double as assistant manager at the Pub on Tuesday afternoon.

“You could tell that the lead singer and lead guitar player, that he was a real student of the blues. … I was blown away by the talent and then the age of the band, and then when I bought their CD, I was blown away by the original music,” he said. “It would be like having Eric Clapton play in your bar when he was 20 — that’s the potential I think these guys have. And who knows if they’ll meet it.”

Powerhouse management group Creative Artists Agency handles Back Door Slam’s bookings, a fact that usually would preclude the trio from setting foot in the Old Town Pub to do anything more than drink Fat Tire. But Vordermeier said landing the act — or anyone else who still travels by pavement — is a matter of logistics.

Outside of booking local favorites and holding on to Fridays with DJ Also Starring, Vordermeier said he plans to scan band schedules for performance gaps and travel plans that involve Interstate 70. By offering many of those acts lodging, food, drinks and a cut of the bar, Vordermeier will, more likely than not, be able to book bands with some regional buzz.

“If I see someone is driving from Lincoln to Las Vegas and they have a day free, we’ll try to make that work,” he said. “Artists are always looking to fill holes, especially the guys who are really out there hitting the road 250 nights a year.”

Vordermeier hopes to bring in live music four or five nights a week, building on a few small changes — such as moving the Friday DJ onto a makeshift stage in the dining room and clearing most of the furniture out of the bar — to up OTP’s capacity for shows. He’ll book just about anything, including jazz, classic rock, funk, hip-hop, zydeco and blues. Anything that is, except for country music, which until further notice is banned from the OTP music calendar.

“I outright hate it, and I won’t have anything to do with it,” Vordermeier said of the genre, allowing that while live music is for the patrons, there are some things he can’t bend on. His philosophy has the potential to offer the kind of low-key, occasionally rowdy stage for live music that’s been missing from town for too long.

“I think this town has been hurting for a venue for a while. Even when Levelz was there, besides Mahogany Ridge, there wasn’t really a place where you could go downtown and hear some music, and have some nights be for free,” he said, extolling the virtues of hearing a band when you’re no more than 10 feet away from it.

“I think in trying times, people won’t go out to eat as much, but they sure drink a lot. And music makes people feel better,” he said.

A good blues record ups a person’s mood, no matter how high or low it was to start out. A good live show does the same. As Vordermeier said, “It’s a win-win situation, and there’s not a lot of those left today.”