Jordan Pascale
As a teen growing up in Northern Virginia, Dave Grohl remembers attending shows at the old 9:30 Club and finding community.
“I got to witness hundreds of bands that inspired me to become a musician myself,” he recalled at the grand opening of the new Atlantis music venue Tuesday morning. “And that feeling of being in this sort of tribe… like we were all in on this big secret that was, I guess, then considered alternative culture.”
“But it was all the misfits. It was all the kids from the suburbs and all the kids from town that found a family together in places like the old 9:30 Club.”
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Now Grohl himself is inspiring fans as an iconic rocker. He was the drummer for Nirvana and later formed the Foo Fighters, a defining rock band of the 90s and 2000s. He’s now coming full circle, opening the Atlantis, a near-replica of the original 9:30 Club tonight with the Foo Fighters. The name “Atlantis” pays homage to a club that preceded the 9:30 Club at 930 F Street in the 1970s.
While only 450 people will get into this long-sold-out show, he hopes Atlantis’ upcoming smaller shows will attract the next generation of kids interested in music.
“Hopefully that tradition will continue,” Grohl said.
The venue is opening with a months-long string of 43 big-name acts like Franz Ferdinand, Joan Jett, Billy Idol, the Pixies, Iron and Wine, Barenaked Ladies, and more. All have sold out. (DCist Arts and Culture reporter Elliot Williams will have a full dispatch on Wednesday from the Foo Fighters show).
Grohl, Mayor Muriel Bowser, and I.M.P. chairman Seth Hurwitz, the music promoter who owns and books acts for the new club, 9:30 Club, the Anthem, and other concert venues, cut the “ribbon” on the new venue at 2047 9th St. N.W. Tuesday morning. A long guitar string served as the ribbon. The new venue at 9th and V is just a mile and a half from the original 9th and F location.
“This is a huge day for music lovers, a big day for everyone who loves the 9:30 Club, and everyone who loves what, you call it weird or alternative,” Bowser said, referring to Hurwitz’s remarks. “I call it the real Washington, D.C., and that is the city that is filled with culture and grit and people who love music.”
Hurwitz says he hopes the new club can be an intimate space that is “pure escapism.”
“There’s nothing like seeing a band in a small place,” Hurwitz said. “Ticket prices are going to be reasonable here. Come check out new acts. Don’t be afraid. Get out of the house. Come downtown. Eat somewhere around here, some great restaurants, and go see a show. Go see a band you’ve never seen. You won’t forget it.”
The venue is small, with a long hallway, a bar at the back, a small floor, and a two-tiered balcony.
The rooftop showcases memorabilia and objects from the old F Street scene in the 1980s, complete with newspaper boxes filled with old issues of the Washington City Paper and Washington Post, a vintage street lamp with 9th and F street signs, parking meters, old liquor store signs and concert posters, and even “Cool Disco Dan” graffiti. The rooftop replica of the old scene is overlooked by a modern new apartment building called the Reverb, which feels like a perfect dichotomy of the formerly grungy and graffiti-covered D.C. and today’s D.C.
Bowser also proclaimed today as “9:30 Club day” in D.C. The original club at 930 F Street opened in 1980 and hosted punk acts like Fugazi, Black Flag, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Ramones, and more.
Promoters I.M.P. wanted to open The Atlantis with 44 acts to honor the 44 years in music in D.C. They received nearly 500,000 ticket requests for the 44 opening shows but only had about 20,000 available. But they have plenty of other upcoming shows with tickets available if you want to check out the venue.
“We’ve got a lot of interest from bands, big acts that want to come play the new little place,” Seth Hurwitz chairman of I.M.P. and co-owner of 9:30 Club said. “And then we’ve got a lot of small acts that want to play, but we’re not just going to throw every act in there.
“(I told the booker to) put the acts there that you think matter. We want people to trust us. We want people to come here (and say) ‘if they’re playing there, they must be good.'”
