by Geon, Bryan
Given the range of the local music scene, it’s not surprising that the majority of Portland’s live music venues are at least moderately cross-genre, and some venues, such as the Crystal Ballroom and Mississippi Studios, take pride in presenting a diverse slate of acts. The venues listed below generally offer live music at least four or five nights a week. Many bars, restaurants, pubs, and nightclubs offer live music on a less-frequent basis, especially on weekends. A statewide smoking ban for bars and restaurants means that you won’t come home after a gig with your hair and clothes smelling like a Vegas ashtray.
Arenas
Rock and pop superstars tend to play in the city’s sports arenas, both located in the Rose Quarter/Lloyd District area of Northeast Portland:
Memorial Coliseum, 300 Winning Way, 503-797-9619, www.rosequarter.com
Moda Center, One Center Court, 503-797-9619, www.rosequarter.com. (The Moda Center was long known as the Rose Garden, and you’ll still hear most people call it that. Do not confuse the Rose Garden arena with the International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park. More than one newcomer has made the mistake, and the potential for confusion is exacerbated on the occasions where the Washington Park rose garden hosts outdoor summer concerts.)
Cabaret
While many of Portland’s bars, restaurants, nightclubs, and performance spaces offer an occasional cabaret performance, the city’s only dedicated cabaret (as distinct from strip clubs that call themselves cabarets) is Darcelle XV (208 NW 3rd Avenue, 503-222-5338, www.darcellexv.com), which has staged female impersonator cabaret shows since the late 1960s.
Folk, Acoustic, Bluegrass, Celtic
Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave, 503-234-9694, www.aladdin-theater.com; the Aladdin is one of the city’s most comfortable concert venues—it actually is a theater, with full seating, plus tasty food and good beer—and gets its fair share of big-name touring folk, rock, and country acts. The seating arrangement is ideal for enjoying folk acts and singer-songwriters, but renders crowd surfing and mosh pit formation impractical.
Alberta Street Pub, 1036 NE Alberta St, 503-284-7665, www.albertastreetpub.com, hosts acoustic, Celtic, and bluegrass performances most nights.
Biddy McGraws, 6000 NE Glisan St, 503-233-1178, www.biddymcgraws.com; despite the name, Biddy’s features more than just Irish music (although there is plenty of that).
Kells, 112 SW 2nd Ave, 503-227-4057, www.kellsirishportland.com, has live Irish music every night of the week.
White Eagle Saloon, 836 N Russell St, 503-282-6810, www.mcmenamins.com/whiteeagle; this purportedly haunted McMenamins tavern has live acts almost every night, along with some all-ages weekend afternoon shows.
Jazz & Blues
For complete information on local events and gigs, check out the websites of the Jazz Society of Oregon (www.jsojazzscene.org) and the Cascade Blues Association (cascadeblues.org).
Andina, 1314 NW Glisan St, 503-228-9535, www.andinarestaurant.com; this upscale and deservedly popular Peruvian restaurant in the Pearl District has live jazz and Latin music almost every night.
Jimmy Mak’s, 221 NW 10th Ave, 503-295-6542, www.jimmymaks.com, is widely regarded as Portland’s foremost live jazz venue, and is graced by occasional performances by living legends of jazz.
Tillicum Club, 8585 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy, 503-327-8147, www.thetillicum.com; this unpretentious restaurant/bar on the fringe of the suburbs hosts regular live performances, with an emphasis on blues.
Tony Starlight’s, 1125 SE Madison St, 503-517-8584, www.tonystarlight.com; if you can ignore the cheesy name, Tony Starlight’s offers a good selection of jazz performances, including traditional jazz and swing.
Wilf’s, Union Station, 800 NW 6th Ave, 503-223-0070, www.wilfsrestaurant.com; who would have guessed that a restaurant in an Amtrak station would have such great live music with an atmosphere to match?
Rock, Pop, Alternative
This category is a catch-all for all the diverse styles spawned from rock-and-roll or R&B—punk, pop, surf, rockabilly, hip hop, alternative, indie, metal, speed metal, death metal, and so on. As noted above, most “rock” clubs also host shows by other types of performers.
Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St, 503-764-4131, www.albertarosetheatre.com; this 1920s-vintage theatre, a former movie house, features a diverse slate of acts, including the occasional living legend blowing through town.
Ash Street Saloon, 225 SW Ash St, 503-226-0430, www.ashstreetsaloon.com; live music seven nights a week in a non-trendy, saloon atmosphere.
Crystal Ballroom, 1332 SW Burnside St, 503-225-0047, www.crystalballroompdx.com; the Crystal Ballroom (a bona fide, actual ballroom) is locally famous for its sprung floor and psychedelic wall murals. Many local, national, and international acts headline here. The cool kids hang out in Lola’s Room, one floor down.
Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St, 503-226-6630, www.danteslive.com; one of Portland’s most eclectic clubs, Dante’s hosts everything from cabaret to punk in a dark space with lots of red décor and a few open flames. (Get it?)
Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St, 503-231-9663, www.dougfirlounge.com; worth visiting for the underlit floor alone, this hip Eastside bar hosts an impressive roster of shows, including performances by artists of national renown.
Duff’s Garage, 1635 SE 7th Ave, 503-234-2337, www.duffsgarage.com; this Southeast Portland venue presents bands running the stylistic gamut from roots rock and rockabilly to country, jazz, and blues.
The Goodfoot, 2845 SE Stark St, 503-239-9292, www.thegoodfoot.com; this Southeast pub hosts frequent live performances, including more funk and soul acts than most Portland venues.
Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE 39th Ave, 503-233-7100, www.hawthornetheatre.com, an all-ages venue in the Hawthorne District, has (almost) nightly live shows.
The Laurelthirst Public House, 2958 NE Glisan St, 503-232-1504, www.laurelthirst.com; this comfy pub/restaurant on the edge of the Laurelhurst neighborhood is more than just a clever name: local and some touring bands play here almost every night.
Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave, 503-288-3895, www.mississippistudios.com; this intimate club on North Mississippi Avenue hosts everything from vintage jazz to alternative bands like Franz Ferdinand.
Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave, 503-230-0033, www.roselandpdx.com; the Roseland pulls in some big-name national and international acts. Depending on the evening bill, you could mix with punks, hipsters, teeny-boppers, Rastafarians, aging hippies, or all of the above.
Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave, 503-345-7892, www.starrtheaterportland.com, is a former movie house–turned strip club–turned music venue is a relative newcomer to the Portland gig scene, but some relatively well-known national acts have played here already.
Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St, 503-284-8686, www.wonderballroom.com; the historic Wonder Ballroom is yet another venue with a remarkably diverse slate of performers, including some national acts.
Theater
Portland has many, many theater companies and ensembles; some go a year or more between productions. For a (relatively) complete list of area theater groups, as well as notices of upcoming events, visit the website of the Portland Area Theater Alliance (www.patagreenroom.org).
Here are some companies that produce plays on a more or less regular basis:
Action Adventure Theater, www.actionadventure.org; this nonprofit collective offers unique productions that are often semi-improvised.
Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison, 503-241-1278, www.artistsrep.org; this accomplished professional nonprofit company stages a regular program of serious and comedic plays in its intimate downtown theater.
The Broadway Rose Theatre Company, 12850 SW Grant Ave, Tigard, 503-620-5262, www.broadwayrose.com; the Broadway Rose, a professional theatre company based in Tigard, focuses on Broadway musicals.
CoHo Productions, 2257 NW Raleigh St, 503-220-2646, www.cohoproductions.org; this award-winning company puts on an always-intriguing slate of
plays at its intimate performance space in Northwest Portland (which it shares on occasion with other local and touring theatrical organizations).
defunkt theatre, Back Door Theater, 4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd, 503-481-2960, www.defunktheatre.com, produces innovative, intriguing, and sometimes edgy plays.
Do Jump! Extremely Physical Theater, The Echo Theatre, 1515 SE 37th Ave, 503-231-1232, www.dojump.org; when this genre- and gravity-defying troupe of “actorbats” performs, the result is part theater, part dance, and part circus. (DoJump! also offers lessons in theater and what can best be described as creative movement.)
Hand2Mouth Theatre, 210 SE Madison St, Ste 11, 503-235-5284, www.hand2mouththeatre.org; this lively company produces somewhat barebones but well-executed original productions.
Hillsboro Artists Regional Theatre, 185 SE Washington St, Hillsboro, 503-693-7815, www.hart-theatre.org; this community theater puts on several productions each year in western Washington County.
Imago Theatre, 17 SE 8th Ave, 503-231-9581, www.imagotheatre.com; known best for its imaginative, long-running production Frogz, Imago focuses on physical theatre and oddball costumes and sets. Most of their original productions delight both children and adults.
Lakewood Theatre Company, 368 S State St, Lake Oswego, 503-635-3901, www.lakewood-center.org; Lakewood Theatre Company has an active calendar of generally noncontroversial productions.
Miracle Theatre Group, 425 SE 6th Ave, 503-236-7253, www.milagro.org, is a group of three Latino arts and culture organizations—Miracle Mainstage, Teatro Milagro, and Community Artes—that present English-language, Spanish-language, and bilingual productions.
Northwest Classical Theatre Company, The ShoeBox Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave, 971-244-3740, www.nwctc.org; the Northwest Classical Theatre Company focuses on the plays of Shakespeare and other established playwrights.
Playback Theater, 503-719-6328, www.playbacktheaterpdx.com; you tell your story, the actors and musicians play it back for you.
Portland Actors Ensemble, 503-467-6573, www.portlandactors.com; this troupe is best known for its free summer Shakespeare-in-the-Park performances in Portland public parks.
Portland Center Stage, Gerding Theater at the Armory, 128 NE 11th Ave, 503-445-3700, www.pcs.org, is one of the Northwest’s largest and most respected theater companies; its productions range from classic dramas to contemporary comedies (and vice versa).
Portland Playhouse, 602 NE Prescott St, 503-488-5822, puts on some pretty edgy shows in a small former church in Northeast Portland.
Profile Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St, 503-242-0080, www.profiletheatre.org; each season, Profile Theatre produces a series of plays from a single playwright. (The 2015 season honored American playwright Sarah Ruhl.)
Theatre Vertigo, Shoebox Theatre, 2110 SE 10th Ave, 503-306-0870, www.theatrevertigo.org, takes on a diverse mix of old and new works.
Third Rail Repertory, 503-235-1101, www.thirdrailrep.org, is a permanent ensemble that stages serious (and tragicomic) plays with a high level of professionalism.
Triangle Productions, 1785 NE Sandy Blvd, 503-239-5919, www.trianglepro.org, now celebrating its 25th season, continues its mission “to entertain and educate through the celebration and presentation of contemporary live theatre, and to promote diversity and tolerance through the presentation of accessible, high-quality productions addressing a broad range of social and political issues.”
Comedy and Improv
GQ magazine has rated Portland the least funny city in America. Given that GQ, while unintentionally hilarious, is not a humor magazine, this rating should not trouble you and in fact is quite heartening. There is plenty of funny business going down in town. In addition to the listings below, the Bridgetown Comedy Festival (www.bridgetowncomedy.com) brings a raft of comics to town each spring.
Comedy Clubs
Many bars and clubs hold occasional stand-up and open-mike nights, but Harvey’s Comedy Club, 436 NW 6th Ave, 503-241-0338, www.harveyscomedyclub.com, and Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave, 888-643-8669, www.heliumcomedy.com, are the best places to see actual and would-be stand-up comics, including some touring headliners.
Improv and Sketch Comedy
A combination of stand-up comedy and acting, improvisational theater uses audience suggestions to create a scene, which is then played for laughs. Sketch comedy is generally scripted, but often has a similar freewheeling feel. Most improv and sketch comedy groups perform on weekends only; call ahead or check websites as times and locations change frequently.
The 3rd Floor, www.the3rdfloor.com
Brainwaves, 503-520-8928, www.brainwavesimprov.com
The Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 503-224-2227, www.brodytheater.com
ComedySportz, 1963 NW Kearney St, 503-236-8888, www.portlandcomedy.com
Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE Martin Luther King, Jr Blvd, 503-477-9477, www.curiouscomedy.org
Funny Business, 503-703-3026, www.funnybusinesspdx.com
The Liberators, www.liberatorsimprov.tumblr.com
The Unscriptables, 2432 SE 11th Ave, 503-841-6734, www.theunscriptables.com
Film
Portland offers a variety of cinematic experiences, from first-run Hollywood blockbusters to art house and foreign films. Look in the daily or weekly newspapers (or on their websites) for movie listings and show times, or peruse www.portlandmovietimes.com.
Portland and its suburbs have an abundance of multiplexes that show mainstream releases: the main chain is Regal Cinemas (www.regmovies.com), which has more than a dozen multiplexes in the metropolitan area, but several other multi-screen cinemas are owned by other chains such as Cinemark (www.cinemark.com). A few independent or neighborhood theaters also screen first-run movies, including the Moreland (6712 SE Milwaukie Ave, 503-236-5257, www.morelandtheater.com), the St. Johns Cinema and Pub (8704 N Lombard St, 503-286-1768, www.stjohnscinema.com), and Cinetopia (three locations, one in Beaverton and two in Vancouver, www.cinetopia.com), which offer several comfy auditoriums (some with leather seats or pillow pits); each location has an on-site restaurant. In addition to movies in traditional formats, there is a four-story-tall screen at the Empirical Theater at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI, 1945 SE Water Ave, 503-797-4640, www.omsi.edu/empirical-theater).
Portland is also blessed with a wealth of second-run movie houses. While these are especially common on Portland’s East Side, they also exist in such suburbs as Milwaukie, Gresham, and Vancouver. A true Portland experience is watching a movie in one of the McMenamins “theater pubs” (movie line 503-249-7474, www.mcmenamins.com), which serve pizza and beer in the restored buildings—for example, the theater at the Kennedy School on Northeast 33rd Avenue, once an elementary school auditorium, is filled with sofas and armchairs. The ornate Bagdad Theater on Southeast Hawthorne was once a true 1920s movie palace (and is rumored to be haunted); its audio and video systems were recently upgraded, and it is currently the only movie outpost in the McMenamins empire to show first-run movies.
The cinemas listed below screen independent, foreign, classic, documentary, and other non-mainstream films. If nothing at the theaters catches your fancy, Portland is also home to one of the country’s best video rental stores, Movie Madness (4320 SW Belmont St, 503-234-4363, www.moviemadnessvideo.com).
Cinema 21 Theatre, 616 NW 21st Ave, 503-223-4515, www.cinema21.com
Clinton Street Theater and Brewpub, 2522 SE Clinton St, 503-897-0744, www.cstpdx.com
Fifth Avenue Cinema, 510 SW Hall St, 503-725-3551, www.5thavenuecinema.org
Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd, 503-281-4215, www.hollywoodtheatre.org
Living Room Theaters, 341 SW 10th Ave, 971-222-2010, pdx.livingroomtheaters.com
Northwest Film Center, Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW Park Ave, 503-221-1156, www.nwfilm.org
Regal Fox Tower Stadium 10, 846 SW Park Ave, 503-221-3280, www.regmovies.com
Film Festivals
In addition to the following established festivals, Portland f
requently hosts one-off film and video festivals and international film festivals with rotating venues.
Cascade Festival of African Films, 971-722-5711, www.africanfilmfestival.org
Fresh Film Northwest, 503-221-1156, www.nwfilm.org/festivals/freshfilm
HP Lovecraft Film Festival, www.hplfilmfestival.com
Northwest Filmmakers’ Festival, 503-221-1156, www.nwfilm.org/festivals/nwfest
Oregon Independent Film Festival, www.oregonindependentfilmfest.com
Portland Film Festival, www.portlandfilmfestival.com
Portland International Film Festival, 503-221-1156, www.nwfilm.org/festivals/piff/
Portland Jewish Film Festival, www.pdxjff.org
Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, 503-223-4515, www.plgff.org
Portland Oregon Women’s Film Festival, www.powfest.com
Reel Music Festival, 503-221-1156, www.nwfilm.org/festivals/reelmusic/
Nightclubs & Discos
Many of Portland’s bars and nightclubs have live music on some nights. Some are hipster dives, others are simply bars with a DJ, and still others are full-fledged dance clubs. The Portland club scene changes almost weekly: once-hot spots fall out of favor, new clubs draw the city’s bright young things and/or suburbanites in baseball caps, owners get indicted or skip town. Here’s a current sampling of Portland nightclubs:
