The Half Moon Putney

The Half Moon Putney is a 220-capacity live-music venue attached to a large pub in London. Its defining feature is continuity: the room traces its concert life to 1963, while its current programme runs seven nights a week. The setting suits a close-range show, with the pub providing a place to arrive early and the separate music room keeping the performance at the centre of the evening.

Folksville, then a fresh chapter

The concert story began in 1963, when Gerry Lockran, Royd Rivers and Cliff Aungier started folk and blues sessions called Folksville. The bills paired emerging British and European performers with visiting American blues musicians, including Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Champion Jack Dupree and Arthur Crudup; the venue’s own history also places John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Alexis Korner and the Yardbirds in this early blues orbit. That foundation helps explain a later record that includes U2’s first sold-out UK show, k.d. lang’s UK debut and Kate Bush’s first public performance. In January 2026, the pub shut for a full refurbishment. It returned in early April with New Moon Rising, an emerging-artist bill designed to mark the reopening after three months of work. Local reporting on the rebuild describes a retained and refreshed side-wall bar inscribed with performers’ names, preserving a tangible link between the room’s previous eras and its new fit-out.

The room today

Expect a mixed grassroots programme spanning rock, pop, indie, R&B, alternative, folk and Latin, alongside established touring artists and occasional comedy. The weekly New Moon night gives developing acts a recurring platform, and the music team invites artist submissions, with a specific route for new bands seeking showcase consideration. Physically, this is a pub-and-performance-room split: new booths sit in the main pub, while the music room has its side bar and a dedicated stage-facing space. An upstairs terrace bar adds another place for pre-show food and drinks.