The live music scene in Arlington — Clarendon, more specifically — lives on.
The closure of long-time music venues Clarendon Grill and Iota Club between 2017 and 2018 left a void in the local live music scene. That has since been filled by a new generation of venues: The Renegade and the recently-opened B Live, both in Clarendon.
The latter was premised on the need for more performance venues in a place like Arlington.
“Clarendon, historically, has had several live music venues and we saw a few of them fall away,” B Live co-owner Mike Bramson told ARLnow in an interview that published yesterday. “The only remaining live music venue was the Renegade. They do a fantastic job and that’s a great venue, but we felt that historically there was always more than just one live music venue… there should be more than one option for live music as most towns and cities have.”
Of course, our larger neighbor just across the river has a much wider variety of music venues, from the 9:30 Club to Echostage to U Street Music Hall to Pearl Street Warehouse — and plenty more. It’s certainly nice to stay in Arlington for a night out, but whatever we lack here is available in D.C. within a reasonable Uber or Metro ride.
Nonetheless, Arlington continues to grow and has a large population of younger adults who value experiences like live music. And Clarendon is a regional draw — Northern Virginia’s most prominent bar district — so it’s not just Arlington residents that such venues attract.
Today we’re asking whether readers think the pair of live music venues we have now is enough, or whether more are needed.