Sick of Terminal 5? Here Are the 7 Best Music Venues Right Outside New York City
Below are seven of Brooklyn Magazine’s favorite tri-state area music venues.
Cafe 9, New Haven, CT
This dive bar in downtown New Haven is a hidden gem in a city with one of the tri-state area’s quickest growing music scenes. “New Haven is getting more on the map, more bands are playing here these days.” says Nussbaum. Nussbaum describes Cafe 9, one of his favorite venues, as a “dark, divey punk bar that sounds good and has great sightlines.” The 130-capacity bar hosts live music seven nights a week, with an impressive range of music, hosting shows by indie-pop veterans Mates of State, country troubadour Kinky Friedman, punk upstarts Boytoy and rockabilly legends Big Sandy and His Fly-Rite boys all in the course of one recent month. The current owner, Paul Mayer, is a musician himself who likes to book up and coming roots-leaning acts in one of the most down-to-earth, communal music venues in the tri-state area. Asked what some of his favorite moments from Cafe 9, which first opened in 1972 under a different name, Mayer says “As you can imagine, there are many.”