Where to Hear Live Music in Brooklyn

There's perhaps no better cultural barometer than music, and no better way to get acclimated to your new neighborhood than to catch local live shows. While New York has remained a melting pot of talented up-and-coming bands for decades, it's Brooklyn that has risen to the top of the indie talent heap. The borough offers a slew of nightly shows to choose from, and with them, an enticing array of venues.

Williamsburg, a neighborhood both revered and reviled for its overwhelmingly hipster populace, has emerged as the best place in the whole of Gotham to see live music. Last summer, a makeshift waterfront stage hosted indie darlings like Grizzly Bear(left), The Dirty Projectors, and Fiery Furnaces for a series dubbed "The Pool Parties." Meanwhile, mainstays like the Music Hall of Williamsburg and Union Pool have given way to a new generation of venues that do double duty as bowling alleys and creative cocktail dens – think Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg and Littlefield in Gowanus.
In fact, Brooklyn's draw is so strong that long-running Manhattan club The Knitting Factory moved across the bridge (to Williamsburg, of course). So let the indie skeptics stew while you traipse from hole-in-the-wall Pete's Candy Store to a DIY basement show in Bushwick, catching creative musicians in their element.



The Bell House
149 7th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11215

Music Hall of Willaimsburg
66 North 6th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Southpaw
125 5th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11217 7

Littlefield
622 Degraw Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217

Brooklyn Bowl
61 Wythe Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Bruar Falls
245 Grand Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Knitting Factory Brooklyn
361 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Union Pool
484 Union Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Public Assembly
70 North 6th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Glasslands
289 Kent Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Warsaw
261 Driggs Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11222

Death by Audio
49 South 2nd Street, Brooklyn NY 11211

The Market Hotel
1142 Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11206

Fort Useless
36 Ditmars Street, Brooklyn, NY 11221