A Field Guide to Tampa Bay's Live-Music Rooms
You can measure a city by its arenas or you can measure it by its rooms — the sweaty, load-bearing, independently owned rooms where a band nobody's heard of walks onstage and, for forty-five minutes, owns the place. Tampa Bay is a rooms town. Here's your map.
Crowbar — Ybor City. Since 2006, the corner of 17th and 8th has been the beating heart of Ybor's alt scene: a black-box club with a covered patio, a punishing sound system and a booking calendar that swings from hardcore matinees to hip-hop showcases. Savor it. Crowbar plays its final show on July 31 after a 20-year run, a casualty of Ybor rents and, in owner Tom DeGeorge's words, "monopolistic practices of corporate ticket sellers." Go now.
Jannus Live — St. Petersburg. The open-air courtyard tucked behind First Avenue North has been Tampa Bay's marquee outdoor club since 1984, named for aviator Tony Jannus. The Red Hot Chili Peppers played their first big Bay-area gig here in 1987 and came back in '89 loud enough to trigger noise fines. Standing-room only, brick underfoot, a sliver of sky overhead — nothing else in the region feels like it.
The Ritz Ybor — Ybor City. Opened in 1917 as the Rivoli Theatre, rechristened The Ritz in 1931, reborn as the '90s goth-punk landmark The Masquerade, and reopened in June 2008 after a $2 million renovation. Today it's 17,000-plus square feet across three rooms with a 25-by-44-foot stage — the room touring mid-majors book when they want Ybor without the black-box grit.
New World Brewery — Sulphur Springs. Presenting local, regional and international acts since 1995, New World relocated north to Sulphur Springs and reopened with a biergarten, an air-conditioned bar and a Music Hall running a brand-new L-Acoustics PA. Thin-crispy pizza, jerk-smoked wings, free parking, and a stage that still books weirdos. A Tampa institution that refuses to die.
Skipper's Smokehouse — North Tampa. Out at 910 Skipper Road, this ramshackle oyster-bar-slash-music-garden has spent decades as the region's home for blues, reggae, roots and zydeco under the oak canopy locals call the Skipperdome. Grouper sandwich, cold beer, a Sunday brunch set — it is the most Tampa place in Tampa.
The Orpheum — Ybor City. A mid-size Ybor club that leans into metal, punk, hardcore and the occasional K-pop rave, and doubles as a launchpad for local album-release bills. If a young Bay-area band is stepping up from the garage to a real stage, odds are it happens here.
The Bricks — Ybor City. A cozy bar on the district's brick spine where the cover is often nothing and the booking favors homegrown singer-songwriters and jazz combos. Low stakes, high charm.
Two more you should know: the Palladium Theater in St. Pete, whose intimate Side Door Cabaret has long hosted jazz and songwriter nights (and, per this summer's calendar, is winding down some of that programming ); and Daddy Kool Records downtown, the record shop that moonlights as an in-store venue and listening-party host.
The through-line: Tampa Bay's best music has always lived in independent hands, and those hands are getting squeezed. Crowbar's closing is the loudest alarm bell, but the whole ecosystem — the biergartens, the oyster shacks, the brick boxes — runs on people choosing the room over the algorithm. So choose the room. Buy the ticket. Tip the sound guy. The map only stays this good if you keep walking it.
Sources: Crowbar's closing, but a new era for Tom DeGeorge might just be taking flight — Creative Loafing Tampa; Jannus Live — Wikipedia; The Ritz Ybor — Wikipedia; New World Tampa — About; Skipper's Smokehouse — Yelp