Lovers of the nightlife have a great range of choices amid the remarkable density of concert venues in our compact city, but there’s always room for more. If you’re a band and you’re dying to share your music with someone other than your roommates or if you’re a concert-goer who simply can’t show your face at Geno’s for the third night in a row, then we here at the Phoenix humbly offer you this sampling of New England venues just waiting for you to show up and show them how we do it on the Peninsula.
You could probably walk to a gig at the NORTH DEERING GRANGE HALL if you put your amp in a Radio Flyer wagon. The spot on outer Washington Avenue is by no means a professional venue, but is the perfect place for like-minded bands and fans to get together with a little help from an enthusiastic promoter. The Grange Hall scene is dominated by the hardcore-ish and screamier-o spectrum of the music scene, but anyone’s welcome; the folks playing are just the ones with their acts together.
There’s also the WINDHAM VETERANS HALL right off the main drag in our dear neighboring town. To the south, there’s the ATLANTIC HALL in Kennebunk. Acta Non Verba recall playing there for a golden year of consistently packed all-ages shows in the unlikely venue’s heyday. Is this a summer-of-love-style flash in the pan, now dwindling, or a hotspot ready to be rekindled?
Tap into the vast unnatural resource of post-industrial warehouse space and give Bangor’s THE UNDERGROUND a try. The Outer Hammond spot hosts all ages, chem-free DIY events in an intimate setting for the kids to scream their heads off. The likes of the Killing Moon, the Symmetry, Sparks the Rescue, and Cambiata have all damaged many an eardrum since the venue opened its doors in 2005.
Across the border in our twin city of Portsmouth (we look nothing alike, but we both like the color “brick”) is the great gift of THE RED DOOR. Manager Cresta Smith somehow makes a martini bar the coolest thing in the world, in part by providing a cozy ambience and consistently good music, thanks to booking agent Jay Boucher. The “Hush Hush Sweet Harlot” music series makes a Monday night road trip worth your time by providing living room performances from the likes of Tiger Saw, Soltero, and our own Seekonk and Phantom Buffalo.
Facing a dearth of venues, Portsmouth’s ingenious scenesters kick our city’s ass when it comes to HOUSE PARTIES. If you want to play or see a show in Portsmouth, the best thing you could do is make friends with a native. That way you’ll always have a new concert story about the cops showing up or taking part in stairwell sing-alongs.
Portsmouth has a red door; Burlington has THE GREEN DOOR. The South End artist-run studio is a pit stop for many of the acts you would expect to see at Strange Maine and its creed. Sounds from the center of the Earth and outer space meet with socially engaged visual art.
Despite its larger size, the Vermont destination feels like vacation village, perhaps because its inhabitants are . . . (ahem) mellower. TICK TICK is changing all that with what they describe as “the infinite boundless energy” of youth. The Burlington screen-printing collective hosts shows in their Marble Street studio.
