Antone's Nightclub

Antone’s Nightclub is a 400-capacity standing-room concert hall in downtown Austin. Its clearest distinction comes from a full-circle opening-night story: zydeco master Clifton Chenier launched the club in 1975, and his son C.J. Chenier headlined the return of Antone’s at its present East Fifth Street home on December 31, 2015. That lineage gives even a mixed-genre bill a blues-club frame.

A club built to move

Clifford Antone opened the first Antone’s on July 15, 1975, in a former furniture store on Sixth Street. Chenier and His Red Hot Louisiana Band played that opening weekend, while the large room also became an early base for the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Triple Threat Revue. Rising Sixth Street rents sent the club north; a Guadalupe Street location opened on September 3, 1982, then a Fifth and Lavaca room followed in 1997. The Riverside location closed late in 2013 as new owners sought a downtown home. Two years later, Antone’s reopened at 305 East Fifth after its hiatus, with C.J. Chenier and the Red Hot Louisiana Band leading the New Year’s Eve bill. The choice deliberately echoed his father’s first night four decades earlier.

The room now

Blues, soul, and R&B anchor Antone’s programming, while the current calendar also makes space for rap, indie rock, tribute shows, and recurring Blue Monday bills. The downstairs concert hall is a 5,000-square-foot, 400-person standing room with a full stage, upgraded lighting, d&b audiotechnik sound, and a high-volume bar with four cocktail stations and two draft towers. Big Henry’s Vinyl & Gifts doubles as the box office and retail space, adding a record-store stop before doors.