Good Live Venues in Your Area?

I get the nagging feeling that venues for playing are decreasing, not increasing. Here in Santa Fe one club closed recently, another couldn't get zoned properly and had to revert to being a restaurant...there are a few places to play, but less than a few years ago.

How about your town? Any hot venues, or is the live scene shrinking?

I played out for a living 15 years ago, but I really would have no idea where a great live place would be in Orange County, CA. I'm sure there out there, just not in the numbers I was used to.

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That's sorta what I'm getting at. It seemed there were enough places you could make at least a somewhat decent living just playing clubs and such. Don't know if that's the situation these days.

I guess this might be something more for Lee's forum, but I'm also asking from an audience standpoint...if you sit around thinking "Gee, I'd sure like to hear a hot band," is there anyplace in your area that will satisfy that urge?

The only venues worth talking about in my area are big hotels that have live gigs only sporadically

The Cheiftains are playing in a posh hotel near me and are charging a whopping

Frankly, I don't think people say that, Craig.

My experience is they look in the local alternative paper to see where a hot band is playing. Not too many places where people say, let's go to ___. There's bound to be a hot band playing there.

Nashville has a lot of decent local venues, but most local bands tell me they make a lot more money playing dives in the outskirts of town than in town, even if they limit their gigs to one or two a month downtown.

I'm guessing it's hardly news to you, Craig, having been to so many Summer NAMM's in Nashville, that you can always find some hot, no-name acts playing the tiny bars on Lower Broad, some great blues acts in Printer's Alley at Bourbon Street Blues or at B.B. Kings. But B.B.'s is more likely to have touring acts, rather than locals.

For Rock & Roll people end up at The Exit/In, 12th & Porter and 3rd & Lindsley. The Cannery hasn't been around long, but it's fast becoming a major player in live entertainment, too.

The live scene in my town has been growing in recent years... I attribute it to:

1) some really great local acts

2) some really great local Promoters

3) plenty of good rooms to play

4) local radio station support

4) a feeling of community and cooperation between all of the above...

I think you need all of the above and more to keep the local scene thriving...

The Cannery was a great venue from 1983 through around 1991. Steve West handled the booking there at the time and they had great bands coming through very frequently (Midnight Oil, the Smithereens and the Red Hot Chili Peppers come to mind).

They also had shows by popular local acts all the time.

It's interesting that it's now making a comeback after reopening.

I didn't know its' earlier history as a venue, Mudcat.

I spent part of the day with NYC Drew when he accompanied the Spin Doctors for an outdoor, summer concert in their parking lot. That was the first time I went inside the place. Seemed like it would be a decent venue with a packed house.

Perhaps I should move back to Tallahassee, huh? Haven't been there since graduating from FSU back in '89.

I think it's shrinking a bit here in KC. We lost one club, Bender's. The Brick is still thriving, I guess. The Grand Emporium has been giving it a try.

We need more venues here, IMO.

The Granada Theatre here in Dallas seems to be pulling some great bands at a reasonable price. And Deep Ellum seems to have Quite a bit of the Younger Bands going (not quite my cup of tea.) But true, Dallas isn't the same as it was back in my heyday.

Minneapolis is still a hopping town. First Avenue, the Quest, and the new Myth are all clubs catering to national acts and are all busy all the time. The local scene is still solid, as well. The Quest and First Ave do local acts, but the Fineline is my fave venue in town. Great sound, great monitors, good lights, nice stage, comfortable size. Never had a bad night there. There was one that closed down, but it's share of shows got picked up by a bigger and better club.

Minneapolis does pretty good for itself, considering it's way the hell up north, here.

It really is a great venue, but the best place to play there is the upstairs room. It's not as big as downstairs, but it's big enough to get a pretty good size crowd in and still have good sight lines. Sightlines in the big room downstairs were always a roll of the dice, depending on where they set the stage.

There are 2 types of live venues around here. One that draws the small touring acts, that hold maybe 400 standing, and luck out with some decent acts, and others that are pay for free dives, that cater to mostly local acts. I'm not counting the lounge and cover places as you have to be in that market to even know where they are. Regulars go to them each weekend it seems.

There are 2 clubs locally that probably count as the first type above. One is mostly Jam Bands and eclectic stuff, and is a great place. It will probably close. The other is in a half deserted strip mall, but draws the 18+ crowd for a night of Headbanging and Young Angry Boy stuff at least once a week. They do branch out though, and aren't really all that irritating. I prefer the first:

http://revolutionhall.com/

although the second probably has more known acts:

http://www.northernlightslive.com/

We play the dives with little crowd, no pay, and 1hr sets.

I've always dreamed of winning the lottery and rehabbing an old historic theater. Turning it into a great destination for intimate concerts...

The Fox theater in Fullerton has always tugged on my heart...

I remember that place. Have not been by it in years, is it still even there? They have changed that area a lot...

There used be a lot of music stores around there, but I think they are all gone.

So you're from Troy? My aunt has lived in Latham for 20+ years. The last time I was in Troy was 1986, I think. It was the only time I visited my dad's alma mater, RPI.

We went to an excellent Italian restaurant with Cheesecake that matched mom's... And that's really saying something!

I lived in Tally during the 70s and the scene was great then. There were always great venues on Tennessee St. Including Tommy's [Macomb and Tennessee, north side of Tennessee, across from Denny's], the Pastime Tavern [two or three blocks back toward FSU, same side of Tennessee], and the Downunder, later called RavenStreet I think [a block further toward the U, across from the Travelodge.]

Are any of those places still there, Kris??

The Belly Up Tavern is North San Diego.

http://www.bellyup.com/

Great live venue. Small bar vibe. Holds around 750 I'd guess. Recording studio in the back. Stage filled with sand (I'm a bass player and I love that). Great mains, monitor mixer and lighting. Backline if needed.

I played there many times through the years. I've seen some incredible shows there too.

David Lindley

Bonnie Raitt

Chili Peppers

Mayall

Hometown friends and favorites The Beat Farmers

Of course there's the House of Blues downtown now too...

I've been working pretty steadily at a local dive called The Trap. Just got a call from the owner that this Friday is going to be our last gig there for awhile as business has been really slow.

A number of other small clubs have shut down in the past few months. It's getting harder and harder to find venues that want to hire small, self-contained rock bands in my area. A lot of them have gone over to DJ's and Karaoke.

in the past, living just north of chicago, we were given two options:

1)go to great, overpriced shows in the city.

2)go to cheap, oftentimes {censored}ty shows in village halls locally.

recently, there have been two venues that have been working really hard on changing all of that:

1) lake forest college - in association with the radio station. i'm the new booking director and so far think i've made a lot of progress. we're putting on free shows open to students and the general public with great bands like - skeletonbreath(NY), anathallo(MI), encomium(AR) and more local greats like - this is me smiling, this is cinema, owen.

2) the venetian - great local venue that's now hosting great bands for reasonable door prices like - askeleton, the felix culpa and the appleseed cast

if you're in the northern-chicago-land-area, i'd check both of these links.

Lake Forest College?? Cool! Glad you're working to make it better.

I grew up in Highland Park. What I wouldn't have done for a decent music venue that catered to rock music nearby.

H.P. has Ravinia, which is great and relatively decent by price... but you're certainly not going to see rock music in Ravinia. I think the closest thing to current rock music that played Ravinia was Barry Manilow, in the late 1970's.

And that's all national act stuff. I only mention it because I think it would be great for Ravinia to support some kind of local/regional act festivals on two or three days during the summer.

The closest live venue to HP back in the day that supported rock music was Shades, which was a blues club 6 of 7 days of the week. It was on Milwaukee at Aptakisic (sp?), down the road from the Marriott Lincolnshire. It was redeveloped from dive bar to multiplex theater and IMAX about 9 or 10 years ago.

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Live music....... in Luck, WI

You've got to be kidding!!!!

Well, there's always your place, jackpine.

You don't know how true that is.

Gotta say that tonite I'm sitting in with Devon Evans (former Bob Marley percussionist) at a benefit for our local Peace group.

He's upstairs right now making his famous "juice", otherwise known as ginger beer..... could be a good night.

Pittsburgh ahh good old pittsburgh

There used too be a good event here at least once or twice a week(rock bands or electroinc events) and plenty of venues..

Clubs ,theaters or just house partys..there was music everywere

The job situation got realy horrible here..So either

people moved,got hooked on heroin and died or they are just lame and dont like Music.

All the good shows skip this poop hole and go too cleveland or philly..

Well I guess if your not realy into anything interesting your ok..Britney spears and the usual cock rock hero bands come through..