Friday, May 1st - 2:00pm
It is with a heavy heart today that I announce that Great Scott will not re-open.
- Tim Philbin, Manager
The unimaginable has happened: the beating heart of Boston’s music scene has permanently stopped. Perhaps it should have been imaginable, with so many small businesses going belly-up during the COVID-19 pandemic. A music venue should be especially vulnerable, with patrons isolated in their homes.
Great Scott’s closure is shocking because the venue has been a pillar of Boston’s music community for 44 years. The room was even recognized nationally in 2016, when Consequence of Sound ranked it the #8 Greatest American Music Venue, ahead of Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall. As the ongoing stay-at-home advisories have disconnected us from live music, whenever I’ve asked friends how they want to spend their first day out of quarantine, they’ve overwhelmingly responded: “I want to go to Great Scott.”
Only a couple of weeks ago I was reminiscing about the summer of 2014 with a friend who has since relocated to Atlanta. The first place he mentioned: Great Scott. He didn’t talk about the fancy bars in the Seaport District or even Fenway Park—he enthusiastically recalled memories from a dive bar in Allston with average sound and a bust of Elvis. Great Scott left a profound impact on his short experience in Boston because it was so much more than just a venue.
Great Scott was music discovery. For $10 any night of the week, you could see a great headliner with solid opening acts in the 200 capacity room. You could catch a local band’s first ever show alongside a touring legend. Hell, we saw The Front Bottoms open for Matt Pryor (The Get Up Kids) on Leap Day in 2012.
Great Scott was also a community.
There is a sign that still hangs in the venue from the establishment that Great Scott replaced. The name of which was Brandy’s. That sign reads ‘Where Incredible Friendships Begin’. I’m glad we never took it down because it explains Great Scott better than I ever could. Take care of yourselves and each other.
- Tim Philbin, manager
Allston can be a daunting neighborhood if you are alone. But after only a few shows at Great Scott, you’d start to recognize familiar faces and feel comfortable on the black-and-white checkerboard floor. Some of us regulars had a “spot”—you could usually find me sitting at the stools in the back under the Elvis bust, others preferred the awkward side view of the stage by the bathrooms, and the perceptive ones knew leaning against the pole was a highly coveted position reserved for the VIPs of Boston’s music scene.
I moved to Boston at 17, and Great Scott has been a steady fixture for my entire adulthood. We had our best and worst nights, made friends, and celebrated independent music. My colleagues at WZBC and I were even fortunate enough to book a show (sold out!) in 2013.
Poster by Lev Omelchenko
Enough about my experiences. Here are words from the people who made Great Scott feel like home. All photos are by Adam Parshall, Boston photographer.
An Obituary for Great Scott
Weakened Friends (2018)
Save Ends (2018)
Nervous Dater (2018)
Choke Up (2018)
Free Throw (2019)
Mannequin Pussy (2019)
Two-hundred-and-forty-character eulogies poured out all day on Friday for Great Scott, to the point where the venue was trending nationally on Twitter. The common themes: camaraderie, joy, and music. There was a spirit inside that place, perhaps emanating from the bust of Elvis, which turned those four walls into heaven. Unlike Boston’s corporate venues, Great Scott anchored an entire community and gave us a space to call home.
One of my favorite memories of Great Scott was captured below by my friend Erika (it may have been Erin—the details are foggy).
Diarrhea Planet (2013)
This kid got his face kicked in and one of the bartenders tossed him a rag to clean up his certainly broken nose. Erika (or Erin) pulled him beside the merch table and asked him to pose with the band’s album, held by Erin (or Erika).
We never found out his name, but like everyone else, he was a friend.