# The Cowboy Rides Away: Nutty Brown 9 Amphitheater closes its doors for the last time

After planning to shut down for more than six years, Nutty Brown Amphitheater is officially closed in Dripping Springs.

Nutty Brown said goodbye with a two-day Texas country music extravaganza this weekend on Friday, Nov. 26 and Saturday, Nov. 27. The final celebration not only marked the end of the event venue locally but also the finalization of its move to Round Rock. After buying McNeil Park in 2015, Nutty Brown had long been in the process of moving cities, delayed by construction issues and the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to a series of negotiations with the city of Round Rock and the Texas Department of Transportation, the new location will now be ready to open in late spring of 2022.

Initially expecting a quick transition between venues was naive, said Mike Farr, owner of Nutty Brown.

“Deciding on the venue is the first step to consider in a long process,” Farr explained. “But I’m a bar, restaurant and concert guy, not a real-estate developer. I underestimated all that would be required.”

Once it was determined

2021 would be Nutty Brown’s final concert season at its current location, Farr said he decided to go all out.

“I decided to take some bigger swings at some bigger acts, like Ludacris and Styx, and we got them,” he said. “The season got off to a good start too, starting with a Pat Green sold-out show and two Parker McCollum soldout shows.”

When it came to the final weekend, there was only one person Farr said he had in mind.

“We knew who our last band had to be: Randy Rogers Band,” he explained. “Randy and I have been friends for 20 years now, and he’s been playing at Nutty Brown since he first started. We even built our professional stage in 2005 to keep up with him. There was no one else I could imagine playing the last note at our last show.”

But after starting as a music venue in July of 2000, Nutty Brown had plenty of other artists that wanted in on the sentiment, musicians who had history with the venue. As a result, the amphitheater's final weekend became “The Cowboy Rides Away,” a Texas country music festival featuring Pat Green, Kevin Fowler, Jon Wolfe, Stoney LaRue, Roger Creager and, of course, Randy Rogers Band.

“It was a magical, wonderful thing — despite the rain,” Farr said with tears in his eyes. “Because it was the last show ever, there wasn’t a single person that left. It was the best, crappy, cold day to have a concert.”

While Friday’s concert was just short of a sell-out, tickets to Saturday’s concert were sold out a month in advance. About 5,000 people attended the festival in total.

“When I bought Nutty Brown in 2002, it was just a mom and pop cafe that had been running for a year, a tiny cinder block building with a patio on the back and a wooden stage right by the bathrooms,” Farr recalled. “I just really want to extend the deepest, most sincere, most heartfelt thank you to all the people in this community who supported Nutty Brown — from when it was just the place to get a chicken fried steak to Pat Green singing in front of 3,800 screaming fans.”

Although the venue is moving, Farr said he is committed to remaining active in the Dripping Springs community.

“I am not going to move; I’m going to live here,” he said. “I’m part of this community. My commitment to this community will never be watered down by any future commitment to any other place.”

Farr said he has seen firsthand the positive effect that local business owners can have on those in their city.

“I grew up really poor and white trash in a town that actually had some money, and when I bought Nutty Brown, I knew I had a responsibility,” Farr said. “This final weekend made me think about all the times that this community supported me, and I supported them. I hope everyone in Dripping Springs knows just how much they mean to me — to me and to Nutty Brown.”