15 Greatest Large Music Venues (1,200 and up) in Austin History

Click on the links for the full story, and no I didn't forget Doris Miller Auditorium (dreadful acoustics) or Hurlbut Ranch (not Austin)

Doug Sahm and band. Photo Van Brooks courtesy AusPop Archives.

Armadillo World Headquarters 1970-1980.

With a capacity of 1,600, it felt like both the world’s largest nightclub and smallest arena, hosting the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Bette Midler, and Ray Charles, but also incubating a local scene that went national on Austin City Limits and with the “progressive country” radio format. Sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, nachos.

Getting ready for Freddy King. Photo Van Brooks AusPop.

The final night of the AWHQ was December 31, 1980, ending with a cast of hundreds singing “Goodnight Irene” at 4 a.m on New Year’s morning. The last line of the Armadillo’s swan song goes, “I’ll see you in my dreams,” a fitting summary for all the great clubs we’ve lost. The reason they call them haunts when they’re open is because it’s hard to get them out of your mind after they’re gone.

2. The Backyard 1993- 2008

With its live oaks and star-speckled sky, this was Tim O’Connor’s crown jewel. Folks told O’Connor nobody from Austin would drive all the way out to Bee Cave to see a concert, but after Tim timed the route at just fifteen lead-footed minutes, the Backyard came up with its “three songs away” tag (or “half a song away” when the Backyard became a favorite stop for jambands, especially Widespread Panic, who recorded a live LP there in 2002.) The venue was charmed from the start, with Leonard Cohen, Jimmy Cliff, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Everly Brothers, Little Feat, the Allman Brothers and a mini-Willie Nelson Fourth of July Picnic that first summer. Parking was rugged and walks were long, but you felt like you were out in the Hill Country. Until the shopping mall came and took away the parking, and then the venue.

3. Austin Opera House 1977-1988

   

   It’s sad to lose a beloved music venue, but another one usually takes its scorched place to reset the ecosystem. But has anything replaced the Austin Opera House as a mid-sized indoor venue with major league talent- and free parking?!?

Liberty Lunch, the Continental Club, and the Mohawk gave and give you raw, powerful, in-your-face experiences, but for pure music appreciation, wouldn’t you rather listen to Randy Newman, R.E.M., Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Tina Turner, Dire Straits, Tom Petty, Lou Reed, Warren Zevon and even AC/DC and Iggy Pop in a venue where you could sit unobstructed, or stand in front of the stage if so moved?

4. Dessau Hall 1876- 2011

   Built by German settlers as Dessau Turner Hall, this 1,500-capacity venue 11 miles north of Austin was not only the site of Elvis Presley’s Austin area debut, but it’s where all the Big Bands, from Harry James and the Dorsey Brothers to Guy Lombardo and Glenn Miller played on their barnstorming tours before and after WWII (except Miller). This is where country and Western swing acts also played, including Loretta Lynn on her first tour in ‘62, when she tried to recruit the backing house band. Kenneth Threadgill was the impromptu opener for Hank Williams at Dessau Hall in 1948, plucked from the audience by co-owner Hallie Price (wife of D.R. Price) when the headliner looked to be a no-show. Backed by the house band, Threadgill was singing “Lovesick Blues” when Hank walked in with a big smile. The original Dessau Hall burned to the ground in the ‘40s, and it was rebuilt around a giant pecan tree that went up through the roof. That edition also burned down in 1967, rebuilt by Arkie Sawyer and called Arkie’s Dessau Hall.

   

5. Southpark Meadows 1982- 2000

   (click link for full history)

   

   Willie Nelson Picnic at Southpark 1984 photo by Scott Newton.

   With its natural slope, thick grass, shade trees and cows grazing behind the stage, the Meadows lent an Austin air to the mega-concert experience. It had the potential to, like Wolf Trap near D.C. and Red Rocks in Colorado, become a destination venue, but owner Abel Theriot ended up selling the land to a shopping center developer. There’s a Walmart where the like of the Police, David Bowie, Rage Against the Machine and Radiohead (opening for REM) once played.

6. Austin Music Hall 1994- 2016

   What a mistake it was to tear down the Music Hall to build a new one that was worse than the old one. AMH II was leveled in 2016 to make room for a twenty-eight-story office building called Third + Shoal. But Tim O’Connor had thirteen very good years in that former chili factory. When he bought the building at 208 Nueces in September 1994, the Austin Music Hall would be its fourth venue that year. It started out as Acropolis dance club, then was Blind Alley for a couple months, and then saw the return of promoter Jim Ramsey with River’s Edge. 

7. Auditorium Shores 1964- 2018

   

   Renamed Vic Mathias Shores in 2018, the outdoor venue on Town Lake, once the home of Aqua Fest, T-Bird Riverfest and Fun Fun Fun, rarely has concerts anymore. But the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue is a reminder of the great music once played on the Shores. Vaughan’s final Austin show was at the Spring Fling on those grounds in May 1990.

8. ACL Live at Moody Theater 2011- present

   The current home of Austin City Limits TV show, entering it’s 50th year of free tapings, this state-of-the-art concert venue holds 1,000 more people than the Armadillo did, but in the “good vibes” department, it’s at about 10%. There’s just something about double-digit beer prices.

9. Stubb’s 1996- present

   The favorite venue of NBA forwards, this amphitheater on Red River gets some great acts, who provide a brilliant soundtrack to the backs of heads you’re watching. There’s really two concerts going on simultaneously at Stubb’s- a rager for those who came early and staked a spot up front, and a snoozer for those stuck in the back.

   The Stubb’s Story.

10. Erwin Center 1977-2022

    Originally called the Special Events Center, this drumlike 18,000-seater was renamed in 1980 for recently deceased former UT Board of Regents rightwinger Frank Erwin. This was Austin’s “Enormodome,” a basketball arena that also held major concerts, creating unforgettable memories and throbbing headaches. The sound could be brutal, until a $55 million upgrade in the early 2000s. I reviewed a bunch of shows there for the Statesman- the best were Lady Gaga, AC/DC, Elton John, Tom Petty and a George Strait/Reba McEntire show that broke Pavarotti’s record for ticket sales. Also panned some shows like Kenny Chesney (2003), “the worst concert I’ve ever seen where nobody threw up onstage.”

11. Manor Downs 1977- 1986

    

    Willie Nelson’s Picnic and Farm Aid came together on July 4, 1986.

    If you’re a diehard Deadhead, this is your #1. The mad jammers played the infield of this horse racing track five times from 1977-1985. They haven’t played Austin since. The Dead’s travel agent Frances Carr bought the old race track during a Dead hiatus, and installed boyfriend Sam Cutler, a legendary rock road warrior, as manager. Bobby Hedderman from the Armadillo was brought on for booking. The new slogan of Manor Downs: Horse Racing and Rock ‘n’ Roll.

    Traffic was a bitch, with only two lanes from 290 to the venue, but beer was only $1 a cup, and this place sure had a lot more ambiance than the Super Drum.

    

    Original Downs crew, with Frances Carr, far right, and Sam Cultler in white cowboy hat. Photo by Watt Casey 1977.

12. Kings Village Rock Grounds 1970-1972

This was a short-lived, but fondly remembered outdoor venue in a predominantly Black neighborhood at I-35 and Howard Lane, owned by booking agent Charlie Hatchett and Ron Coleman from the New Orleans Club. Only Hill on the Moon had regularly held outdoor concerts previously.

Tragedy struck Kings Village in September ’71 when popular sausage vendor Francisco “Paco” Carrasco, a UT grad student, was shot and killed outside the venue’s entrance. Trying to prevent someone from the neighborhood stealing a sausage sandwich cost him his life. Wishbone Ash had been playing that day and wrote “Rock and Roll Widow” about the murder, which I believe went unsolved.

HACO Productions packed it in at Kings Village soon after, though a new owner kept the concerts going another year.

13. City Coliseum (1949- 2002)

    

    Perhaps the greatest roster in Austin concert history was an October 7, 1957 package show at City Coliseum with Fats Domino, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Chuck Berry, The Everly Brothers, The Drifters, Lavern Baker, Clyde McPhatter, and more. That talent makes the ACL Fest lineup look like, well, the ACL Fest lineup. A former B29 bomber hangar the city bought for $16,000 at a surplus sale at the end of WWII, the Coliseum held about 4,000, a perfect size to see bands like the Clash (1982), or party at Carnaval, but some acts hated the Coli. “There were no dressing rooms, so we had to put the band in a big bathroom behind the stage,” recalled Louis Meyers, who co-promoted the Fela show with Brad First. The headliner barked at Meyers: “You do not put FELA in a shithouse!”

14. Municipal Auditorium 1959- 1981 (when it became Palmer)

    

    Home of the first concert by Bob Dylan backed by the Band (9/24/65), the only Austin show by Bob Marley and the Wailers, and the first rap concert in the city (4/1/81), this venue was plagued by bouncy acoustics, but at nearly 6,000-capacity, this is where the major acts had to play. James Brown took the stage here the night of Aug. 1, 1966, a familiar date for mass murder buffs, when Austin became “the city with the violence crown.”

15. Hill on the Moon 1970-1973

    

    In the early ’70s, everybody was trying to put on the next Woodstock. The Austin rock crowd’s greatest attempt was 1973’s “Last Bash on the Hill,” a free all-day festival starring the 13^th Floor Elevators just a couple months after Roky Erickson was released from Rusk State Hospital for the criminally insane. Also, on the bill at Hill on the Moon, private land off City Park Road, were Jimmie Vaughan’s Storm, Conqueroo, Freda and the Firedogs, Becky Franke’s Tanglefoot, and a surprise guest who turned out to be Willie Nelson.

    About 3,000 were expected, but 15,000 showed up. RR 2222 was backed up for miles and folks were ditching their cars to hike up the hill. The colorful turnout has been credited with inspiring Willie Nelson’s first Fourth of July Picnic three and a half months later.

    

    Crady Bond

    Brothers Crady and Barry Bond, who inherited the scenic, sloping ten-acre festival site, as well as the houses and sheds in the back, where bands lived and practiced as loud as they wanted, had put on a few outdoor concerts there previously. But the local police, assisted by Texas Rangers and DPS, had been regularly hassling and arresting attendees and staff. Fifty-eight were arrested at Austin’s first-ever rock festival at the Hill in August 1970, with three cars and a truck seized for containing narcotics and sold at auction. The longhaired, pot-smoking subculture was the enemy of the authorities, whose greatest weapon was the law. 

    Barry Bond, twenty-two, was found dead five months later at the base of Mount Bonnell, though it was never determined if he jumped or fell. The Hill on the Moon concerts just weren’t worth it anymore, so Crady’s partners in police harassment, the One Knite, suggested a final blowout. They’d book the bands and bring the beer, and Bond would provide the site without charge. “We just wanted to have the biggest party Austin had ever seen,” said Collins. All the businesses listed on the poster contributed to the beer expense—sixty-two kegs of Lone Star which would be given out free. “We didn’t care about making money, just like at the One Knite.”

Honorable mention: Waterloo Park, Bull Creek Inn, Fiesta Gardens (Talking Heads!), Hogg Auditorium, Nutty Brown Cafe, and that cookie-cutter performing arts center at UT whose name… oh, yeah… Bass Concert Hall.

THE 40 Greatest Music Clubs in Austin History