Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville, Kentucky, features a variety of live music venues clustered in different neighborhoods around the city.
“Our music scene is really cool — we have some great local bands that have made it pretty big, like My Morning Jacket,” said Jessica Dillree, marketing communications manager at the Louisville Convention and Visitors Bureau. “And there’s a great community of musicians around here, too.”
The downtown area, known locally as SoFo, is home to the Louisville Palace, perhaps the city’s most iconic performance space.
“It’s a really ornate Art Deco theater, very elaborately decorated,” Dillree said. “There are relief sculptures of faces all over the ceiling in the lobby. Inside, the ceiling is painted like the sky, so you feel like you’re in an outdoor amphitheater. It hosts national touring acts, but it’s not very large. It has a very intimate feeling.”
On the same block is the Brown Theatre, another small, intimate venue. And next door is the Mercury Ballroom, which hosts both up-and-coming touring acts and some of the funky local groups making a mark on the Louisville music scene.
Another neighborhood, nicknamed NuLu, has smaller venues and clubs that feature inventive live music from local artists. Haymarket Whiskey Bar is a site on the city’s Urban Bourbon Trail as well as a popular music venue. The cellar lounge at Decca plays host to live jazz most nights of the week, including a jazz series that sometimes features performances by the city’s orchestra conductor.
“We also have a pretty burgeoning hip-hop scene right now,” Dillree said. “One of the guys who is pretty young has collaborated with the orchestra and the conductor. They have created a mashup of different styles called the Louisville Concerto. It’s hip-hop mixed with folksy music.”
San Antonio
Many visitors automatically picture the Riverwalk when they think of San Antonio, but there’s much more to this city than its central tourist district. A case in point is the pocket neighborhoods known for their variety of live music.
“The largest concentration of live music venues is on North St. Marys Street,” said Debbie Racca-Sittre, director of arts and culture for the city of San Antonio. “There are about 10 venues there. It is focused on indie music and up-and-coming bands, but there are also a couple of places that bring in more national bands.”
The Pearl area near downtown is a former beer brewery complex that has been reimagined as an entertainment, shopping and dining district. Several venues at Pearl offer live jazz, and Sam’s Burger Joint features both live local jazz and concerts from touring artists.
San Antonio has a number of famous festivals and events in various parts of town, and many feature lots of live music. The La Villita neighborhood, a historic area near the Riverwalk, hosts the Maverick Music Festival in April, as well as the many musical performances that are part of Fiesta, San Antonio’s celebration of all things Hispanic. The Dia de Los Muertos festival, which takes place in La Villita the day before Halloween, features music at multiple stages in the neighborhood plaza and local theaters.
Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City has garnered a lot of attention in the past decade or so for its Bricktown entertainment district. This downtown neighborhood, once a blighted industrial area, has been revitalized and turned into a world-class entertainment destination, complete with dining, shopping, a canal and live music.
Bricktown doesn’t have a row of bars offering live music like some other cities. Instead, it delivers music experiences in a variety of ways.
“Bricktown is home to our Academy of Contemporary Music,” said Tabbi Burwell, communications manager for the Oklahoma City Convention and Visitors Bureau. “They have live music performances there on the weekends that are open to the public.”
Another Bricktown attraction, the American Banjo Museum, gives visitors a fascinating look at one of America’s most iconic instruments and musical genres. Groups that tour the museum can arrange to have live banjo performances during their visits there.
Just down the street from the museum is the Criterion, a live music venue that can accommodate up to 4,000 people and that frequently hosts concerts by regional and national performing artists.
