San Francisco Live Music Venues: Grant and Green
Venue: GRANT AND GREEN
Address: 1371 Grant Ave. @ Green St.
Neighborhood: North Beach
Types of bands that play here: Depends on the night; blues / jazz, pop / rock, instrumental, lots of cover bands
How often there’s live music: ~ 4x / week
Points given for: No cover; casual crowd; good weeknight but great weekend music; great exposure to local bands
Points taken away because: If there’s any sort of crowd, it takes forever to get a drink; small stage can limit the intensity of some bands when playing here
Overall: The Most Kissed Music Journalist thinks making out in the corner of this bar is not a bad idea
Grant and Green is one of the live music venues of San Francisco which I know the best. It’s in North Beach, the neighborhood that I call home, and so when I feel like going out but don’t want to have to deal with hailing taxis or hopping on cable cars, I traipse my way down the street to this neighborhood bar and see who might be playing. There’s never a cover to get in the door, so even if it turns out that I don’t like the band, there wasn’t any harm in stopping in. And, more often than not, I think that the band is worth hearing.Grant and Green is located, as its name would suggest, on the corner of Grant Ave. and Green St. This puts it in close proximity to the numerous wonderful restaurants in North Beach and near enough to other bars to make jumping from place to place to diversify your night something that can easily be done. The crowd is generally what I think of as a “North Beach crowd”, although more on the laidback side of the typical North Beach spectrum – meaning that the average age of patrons is probably about 30 and you’ve got people dancing along with the music but no one going too college-kid-crazy. Tourists end up here regularly although it’s very much a neighborhood bar.The stage at Grant and Green is small, so large (many member) bands often look like they’re kind of crowded up there. For that matter, the venue itself is fairly small so it can get crowded, but it’s the kind of crowd that gives each other enough space so that you can always see and hear the band well and can move with the music if you so choose. And what kind of music would that be? Well, one day it might be a blues / jazz band and the next it might be an 80’s pop cover band. In general, the music is hard folk / light rock in intensity but the genres and acts vary greatly, with more happenin’ stuff happening on the weekends.
In keeping up with the times, Grant and Green maintains a MySpace page so you can find out the latest info about who is playing by becoming their friend and getting the bulletins or checking out the list on the site. Check San Fran Voice on Mondays to get the music line-up for the week and see which Grant and Green shows are suggested for you.
2 Comments
Thanks for showing the love to Grant and Green! They are really doing their best to promote and bring local musicians into that space. My band is playing there on May 24th and the booker has shown us nothing but love so far. Thanks again! You Rock!
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