Boston-area Nightlife

Yes, yes, I love to see live music. Here are the places I’ve been.

The Attic — A groovy little Newton Centre club. I saw a horrible band there back in January (I mean HORRIBLE!) but the bar itself is pretty cool. Spacious, decent menu, lots of beer. I’ll definitely go back there when I can be assured that the band there won’t be horrible.

Avalon — a cool place. A moderately sized venue, but they tend to oversell tickets so you feel like you’re in a can of sardines as opposed to a live music venue.

The Burren — That’s a pretty cool place too. I’ve only been there once and saw a mediocre band who did mostly 80s covers, but I do like the venue quite a bit.

The Cantab Lounge — I love the Cantab! Their open mic nights are loads of fun. They also have blues jams and bluegrass jams. I haven’t been to the latter, but the blues jams are a lot of fun. Pretty inexpensive food and really friendly staff and crowd.

Club Passim — Club Passim is a great place to see folk music. It’s in an intimate setting and they usually have good performers there. They’re attached to Veggie Planet restaurant, which has some great stuff. Mostly fair trade and organic food. Try their pizza, or for dessert they have good ice cream.

Harper’s Ferry — despite being in Allston, all of the shows I’ve been to there were free of that fratty crowd. It’s a cool place with good bands that go there…lots of jam bands. However, Harper’s Ferry has three strikes against them. 1) They will not give you a glass of water. They force you to purchase bottled water. 2) They have a dress code. The bouncers may or may not enforce it. 3) Surly employees. The bartenders are sometimes too busy gossiping with each other to serve you. A lot of the bouncers are twerps on a power trip.

Hong Kong — Can’t stand this place. Totally not my scene. One of my least favorite bars in the Boston area.

Jillians — Jillian’s is pretty cool! Huge, though. They’ve got pool and bowling. And who knows, maybe you’ll run into a celebrity!

Johnny D’s — Johnny D’s is so cool. One of my favorite places. I’ve seen a handful of bands there, including Beatlejuice (a really awesome Beatles tribute band with the dude from the band Boston), Velvet Elvis, and Garland Jefferys. (A little background there, Garland Jeffreys wrote a song called “Christine”, and that’s the song I got named after. I got to meet him at the show and I told him I was named after his song. It was really cool!)

The Middle East — This place is cool! They’ve got a lot of room different bands playing. I really dig this place. They have food upstairs, too, so go and get yourself a falafel before the show, man.

PA’s Lounge — A pretty cool place. I want Matt’s bands to try to get gigs there. It smells kind of funny, though.

Paradise — A VERY cool club. It would be awesome to see the Talking Heads or the Clash here or something. Totally rock and roll. Poor beer selection. When I went there it was 18 and up and the 18-20 crowd was a real bummer. They were popping pills (ecstasy, I think) and being really obnoxious. But the Paradise is awesome.

The Reel Bar — Eh, it’s in Allston so the quality of the crowd diminishes during the school year. But Matt’s bands get to play there and the bartenders are really nice. It’s kind of small though. But they have cool artwork that hangs on the walls and is changed regularly.

Regatta Bar — Regatta Bar is a jazz club inside the Charles Hotel. They have good acts there, such as Oteil Burbridge (bassist of the Allman Brothers) and Charlie Hunter! They also have Chimay, a fantastic beer!

SoHo — Grrrr. This place is fine until 9 PM when it turns from a place to grab a drink and munch on appetizers to scantily clad 21 year olds and the 35 year old men who try to hit on them. Matt’s coworkers really dig this place so we go there sometimes, but we always leave before it turns into a club. And avoid their chicken soup like the plague. It was about as tasty as downing an entire container of Morton’s Salt.

T’s Pub — Another place I don’t like. Too collegey. I went there for karaoke once and was really bummed out by the crowd.

Top of the Hub — I’ve actually only been here once and it was during the day. The views are spectacular.

TT the Bear’s — Another cool club in Central Square. Good bands there. It’s a pretty small venue, but a great place to see local bands.

Wally’s — That reminds me, I haven’t been to Wally’s in ages. Wally’s is a fantastic and funky little jazz club. I love it. They have a great band that plays there on Sunday nights. Apparently they have board games, too!

Alright, I’ve been to more but that’s all I can think of right now. I’m suddenly feeling pretty sick again, so that’s the end of this blog post! Adios!

Filed under Fun stuff, Greater Boston (General), Music, Things to do in the Boston Area |