Epicenter brings live shows to its Victory House venue

Since the Epicenter sports and entertainment complex opened in Santa Rosa in 2017, its Victory House restaurant and bar has been a mainstay. And as the county reopens while the coronavirus pandemic wanes, the space has become a new nightspot.

Victory House declared itself a new local venue for regular live entertainment with a free performance Saturday, June 26, by local fan favorite and party band Kid Galaga. The show drew about 75 people, and the Epicenter management is excited about pressing ahead with more shows.

“Overall, it was a great first show for us, and we are looking forward to the next one,” said Jenny Ogston, Epicenter general manager. “A group like Kid Galaga brings their own party wherever they go. They were the perfect band to start us on this new adventure.”

Until now, the main entertainment in the venue has been sports events on television.

“Victory House has never had a driving purpose past about 10 p.m. every night,” Ogston said. “The dinner crowd is finished up, and here on the West Coast, all of the games are generally done by 10 p.m. We seemed to be wasting a beautiful space on sparse crowds watching ‘SportsCenter’ reruns.”

Now Victory House will host live music and comedy shows after 10 p.m. on many weekends. The space also is available for rent by private parties when it’s not already booked for live music or comedy shows. The space has a capacity of 250 people.

“On July 10, there’s a benefit concert for one of our staff members whose son is fighting a rare brain cancer,” Ogston said.

Rancho Deluxe, a country band made up of Rancho Cotati High School alumni, will perform at the fundraiser.

The North Coast Comedy series, presented by Total Bern Productions and last seen at Epicenter in 2019, comes July 23 to Victory House with standup comic Kabir "Kabeezy" Singh. Comedy shows were previously presented in another space at Epicenter which is now occupied by Ignite Martial Arts.

Kabir’s TV credits include “StaannDUP!” on the Starz Network, “Stand Up Revolution” on Comedy Central, “The Family Guy” and “Laughs” on Fox and “Punchline” on Hulu, as well as “NBC Stand Up.”

In 2012, Kabir won all five shows in the final round of the San Francisco International Comedy Competition.

The North Bay blues and bluegrass band Dirty Cello, led by the husband-and-wife team of cellist and vocalist Rebecca Roudman and guitarist Jason Eckl, is already booked to play Oct. 16 at Victory House.

“Our goal is to have one or two, or more, live music or comedy shows a month until November and December, when we’ll book holiday parties. We want to become a venue for many different things: high school reunions, wedding receptions, birthday parties. We want to be a versatile community center,” Ogston said.

“Victory House is a great space for live music and comedy shows and, really, almost any kind of show imaginable,” she added. “We just needed to think of that space in a new way. And once we did that, really exciting ideas happened.”

In addition to Victory House, Epicenter includes three indoor turf fields for soccer, lacrosse and flag football; a volleyball court, 16 bowling lanes and an 120-game arcade.

You can reach Staff Writer Dan Taylor at dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5243. On Twitter @danarts.