Chapel Hill, NC’s Music Scene

North Carolina has tons of music venues, in almost every city in the state. If you live in North Carolina and like going to see live music, the chances are good you have been to the Chapel Hill Carrboro area at least a few times. One of the more art centered towns in the state Chapel Hill and Carrboro (its small town neighbor) pull in tons of great bands every year to its local venues. Here are a few of the places in the area where you can find some terrific music:

Cats Cradle
300 East Main Street
Carrboro NC 27510
919-967-9053

The Cat’s Cradle is known throughout the US at a great music venue, and is the best in the Chapel Hill/ Carrboro area. A lot of great bands have gotten their start playing at the cradle and it’s a terrific venue to see a band. They will usually get all of the shows that are too small for large venues like the Alltel pavilion, but much larger than a typical bar scene.

The cradle is set up like many venues, as a large empty room. They have several different risers within the room that have bench seating on them one is at the very back and then two are located on the left hand side of the stage. If you want to sit down during the show you’ll need to arrive pretty early, as most of the seated locations are taken up within the first fifty or so people that come in.

Beyond the lack of seating there really isn’t much to criticize the cradle for. They have a reasonably decent bar with nothing on tap, but a good variety of beer wine and soda in cans and bottles. The merchandise table is located in a pretty odd location, right by the door, which can make for some difficult exits.

A good, or bad feature of the venue is that they have gone to completely non-smoking over the past year. For a non-smoker like myself this is great news, because I can go to a show and not leave smelling like an ash tray, to other smokers however, this is probably not for the best.

Carrboro Arts Center
300-G east Main Street
Carrboro NC 26510
919-929-2787

Located right next door to the Cats Cradle, the Carrboro Arts center pulls in an entirely different type of music than the Cradle. The arts center, which also showcases local photographers and painters, has a huge stage set up with stadium style seating. In the arts center you can catch a play, but also some wonderful classical musical performances.

In addition to the classical music options at the arts center the cat’s cradle will often book shows on the stage of the arts center. Shows that are going to mellower, and more acoustic than your traditional rock show will sometime find their way into the Carrboro arts center. One of my favorite bands often will perform their all-acoustic Christmas show on this stage. It allows for the audience to be seated rather than stand like they would at the cradle, and everyone is close to the stage the way the seating is worked out.

There is a small bar in the lobby, which sells wine, beer and snacks and you can take a look at some great art during intermission or before the show. This is a really nice venue for restful concerts.

Local 506
506 W, Franklin Street
Chapel Hill NC 27516
919-942-5506

If your band isn’t big enough yet to play at the Cats Cradle, then your next best bet is local 506. Local 506 will often get bands that are up and coming, are gaining popularity, but still not enough popularity to sell out a larger venue.

One thing I like about Local 506 is that all of their shows are 18 and up. Many shows at other venues seem like they are full of younger children, and their parents, which as an adult can be annoying. Local 506 shows make it so you can at least bank on everyone being 18.

They get several great bands, and the ticket prices are usually pretty reasonable. You can purchase tickets in advance on etix, which can make it easy for out of towners to get tickets to shows that they want to go to.