The Busholme: Where Live Music Still Feels Like It Belongs
By Stevie Connor | The Sound Cafe Journal
In Erin, Ontario, an historic building has become something increasingly rare, a venue where great food, great musicians and a genuine audience come together to make live music feel important again.
There are venues you visit, and there are venues you remember. The Busholme, on Main Street in Erin, Ontario, belongs firmly in the second category.
My wife Anne and I visited The Busholme for the first time to experience an afternoon of live music featuring The Sound Café Journal's Editorial Director & Journalist Erin McCallum, and JUNO Award winner Teddy Leonard opening for Steve Marriner and his band, with the outstanding Jessie O'Brien among the musicians joining Marriner. We arrived as visitors, but were made to feel very quickly that we were welcome guests.
I had the opportunity to speak personally with the owners, who welcomed us into their space with a warmth and generosity that immediately told me something about the character of the place. Their hospitality was exceptional, and that same sense of welcome extended throughout the venue. The staff were friendly, attentive and genuinely engaged, creating the kind of atmosphere that makes you feel comfortable almost immediately.
That matters, because The Busholme isn't simply a building in which music happens. It is a place where people have clearly made a conscious decision to create an experience.
And on this particular afternoon, they succeeded remarkably well.
A Building With a Story
Long before today's audiences arrived for live music, another story was being written inside these walls.
The Busholme building dates to 1886. According to the Town of Erin, it was originally intended to serve as a hospital, although it instead became home to doctors and their medical practices. In 1924, the building became the Horton Hotel, before local businessman J.P. Bush purchased it in 1926 and named it the Busholme Inn.
That history is not difficult to feel.
There is something about an old building that has spent more than a century being part of a community. People have walked through those doors for different reasons across generations, patients, travellers, locals, drinkers, diners, friends and, now, music lovers. The building has changed and the community has changed, but the fundamental idea has remained remarkably consistent: this is a place where people come together.
Today, The Busholme operates as a restaurant and bar with a strong commitment to live music. But what interested me most wasn't simply the programming. It was how naturally the different parts of the experience fitted together.
The Difference Is in the Details
Anyone can put a band in a room. Creating the conditions for that band to succeed is something else entirely.
What struck me about The Busholme was how straightforward the approach seemed: give people somewhere they actually want to spend time, give artists a room in which they can perform properly, and make the audience feel that the music is part of the occasion rather than an interruption to it.
On the afternoon of Steve Marriner's performance, the music wasn't fighting for attention. It wasn't something happening somewhere in the background while people concentrated on everything else. It was the reason people were there, and the venue treated it accordingly.
One of the things I noticed almost immediately was the dedicated sound booth. For anyone who has spent enough time around live music, that is not a minor detail. The person behind the controls was clearly on the ball throughout the performance, paying attention to what was happening on stage and making the necessary adjustments as the show unfolded.
The result was excellent sound from beginning to end. The musicians were heard clearly, the balance remained strong and the audience wasn't left wondering whether a vocalist, instrument or musical detail was disappearing into the room. It was simply a very well-managed live sound experience.
That may not be something every audience member consciously notices, and perhaps that is exactly the point. When the technical side is being handled properly, you don't spend the afternoon thinking about the sound engineer. You simply hear the music as it should be heard.
At The Busholme, we did.
The Music
Watching Erin McCallum and Teddy Leonard open the afternoon was a reminder of what a strong opening set can contribute to a show. An opening act should establish the mood and give an audience a reason to pay attention, rather than simply fill the time before the headline performer appears. McCallum and Leonard did exactly that.
Then came Steve Marriner and his band.
Marriner is the sort of musician who makes the phrase multi-instrumentalist feel almost inadequate. A JUNO Award-winning artist with an extraordinary command of his craft, he brings together the blues, roots, soul and broader traditions of Canadian music with the kind of musicianship that rewards close listening.
In a room like The Busholme, that musicianship has room to breathe. The audience isn't several hundred feet away, the performance doesn't disappear into an enormous space, and the musicians remain close enough for the connection between stage and audience to feel immediate.
That intimacy is one of the great strengths of a venue such as this.
Food, Music and the Art of Staying Awhile
The Busholme is also, importantly, a restaurant, and Anne and I had the opportunity to experience that side of the venue during our visit. We chose different meals, but arrived independently at exactly the same conclusion: the food was excellent.
That may sound like a small observation in an article about live music, but it isn't.
A venue that combines good food with serious live music gives its audience the opportunity to make an occasion of the experience. You can arrive, sit down, enjoy a proper meal, talk with the people you're with, settle into the room and then enjoy the performance.
The food doesn't feel like an afterthought to the music, and the music doesn't feel like an interruption to the restaurant. The two work together, and that is good hospitality. Good hospitality, in turn, is part of good live music.
The menu matters, of course, but menus only tell part of a venue's story. The more important question is what happens when you sit down, order your meal and settle into the room.
For Anne and me, the answer was simple: we were well looked after, and the food was excellent.
Hospitality Is Part of the Music
The more time we spent at The Busholme, the clearer that became.
The owners welcomed us personally and made a point of making us feel at home in a space that was, until that afternoon, new to us. That kind of hospitality cannot simply be printed on a menu or added to a website. It comes from people who genuinely care about the experience they are creating.
The staff reflected that same attitude. They were friendly, helpful and attentive without becoming intrusive, and there was a sense that everyone understood their part in making the afternoon work.
That might sound like a simple thing, but in practice it is enormously important.
Live music is a collective experience. The artist contributes, the audience contributes, the venue contributes, the sound engineer contributes, the kitchen contributes, the servers contribute and the owners contribute. When all those elements are working together, an audience feels it, even if they never stop to identify exactly why.
We certainly felt it at The Busholme.
More Than a Venue
There is a temptation when writing about historic places to become overly nostalgic. The Busholme doesn't need that.
Its history is interesting, but its present is even more interesting because this isn't simply a preserved piece of Erin's past. It is a living place: a working restaurant, a gathering place, a music venue and a part of the community.
More importantly, it is a place that appears to understand the relationship between artists and audiences.
That is something we care deeply about at The Sound Café Journal.
We spend a great deal of time documenting musicians, talking to artists, listening to records and attending performances. Increasingly, we also find ourselves asking a simple question: where are the rooms that actually support this music?
The answer isn't always found in the largest concert hall.
Sometimes it is found in a historic building on Main Street in Erin.
This Is What Live Music Should Look Like
Perhaps that is why our afternoon at The Busholme stayed with us.
It wasn't simply because Steve Marriner and his band were excellent. They were. It wasn't simply because Erin McCallum and Teddy Leonard opened the show with such confidence. They did. It wasn't simply because Jessie O'Brien added another level of musical excellence to an already exceptional lineup. He did.
It was because the entire experience felt right.
The artists were there to play, the audience was there to listen, the venue was there to host, the kitchen was there to feed people, the staff were there to look after them and, behind the scenes, someone was making sure the music actually sounded as good as it could.
Everyone had a role, and everyone contributed. For a few hours, none of those things competed with one another. They worked together.
That sounds simple, but it isn't.
In an increasingly difficult live-music economy, where artists are often expected to do more for less and venues face their own financial pressures, creating an environment where everyone has a chance to succeed is becoming something worth celebrating.
The Busholme demonstrates that it can still be done.
A Place Worth Finding
There is something particularly satisfying about discovering a venue for the first time and realizing that you have stumbled upon something genuinely special.
That was our experience at The Busholme.
Anne and I arrived as first-time visitors. We left having experienced excellent food, outstanding musicianship, great sound, warm hospitality and a room that understands what a live-music venue can be when the people behind it care about getting the details right.
And that, ultimately, is what The Busholme represents.
It is not simply a historic building that happens to host music. It is a living part of Erin's community that has created an environment in which artists can perform, audiences can listen, people can eat, friends can gather and everyone can feel welcome.
For The Sound Café Journal, that is worth celebrating.
Because the best live-music experiences don't necessarily happen in the biggest rooms.
Sometimes they happen in places with a bit of history in the walls, a good meal on the table, a capable sound engineer behind the booth, welcoming people at the door and musicians close enough that you can see the concentration on their faces.
Sometimes they happen in Erin.
At The Busholme.
And sometimes, when the room, the artists, the audience and the people behind the scenes all understand what they are trying to create, live music doesn't just sound good.
It feels like it belongs.
The Sound Cafe Journal
Where the story behind the music matters.
Find Out More About Stevie Connor HERE
There are venues you visit, and there are venues you remember. The Busholme, on Main Street in Erin, There are venues you visit, and there are venues you remember. The Busholme, on Main Street in Erin,
