Music

Great Scott will reopen in new Allston location

Great Scott, which was forced to close in 2020 during the pandemic, will be reborn two blocks from its original home.

By Kevin Slane

July 30, 2024

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A longtime Boston music venue that closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic will reopen its doors in a new location.

Great Scott, the local music venue in Allston that first opened in 1976, will resume operations just up the street from its original location, at the intersection of Harvard Avenue and Cambridge Street in Allston.

With a capacity of 240 people, Great Scott was an ideal spot to see both local up-and-coming acts and national touring artists. Top-line talents like Charli XCX, MGMT, Jack Harlow, and Phoebe Bridgers were among the acts who played at the Allston haunt before making it big.

The venue also enjoyed a dedicated following from neighborhood fans, who appreciated it as a space where the gritty, DIY spirit of a rapidly gentrifying Allston was kept alive.

When news of Great Scott’s closing was announced in 2020, more than 25,000 people signed a petition protesting its closure. When Great Scott’s longtime talent buyer Carl Lavin started a crowdfunding campaign to find the venue a new home, it attracted more than $300,000.

That new home at 1 Harvard Avenue is just two blocks away from its original 1222 Commonwealth Ave. location, and will actually be two venues in one: A 300-person capacity Great Scott, and a 75-person capacity room for O’Brien’s Pub, its longtime sister club.

When Great Scott closed in 2020, it was on a month-to-month lease. Now, the venue owns its own space, thanks to a deal brokered between Lavin, Redefined CEO and Boston Music Awards producer Paul Armstrong, and real estate developer Jordan Warshaw of the Noannet Group.

The new home of Great Scott and O’Brien’s will be a mixed use development designed by local architects CambridgeSeven, featuring additional retail space and rental units.

“Since Great Scott closed four years ago, there has been such an outpouring of support for its reopening, but we live in a difficult economic climate where in the past few years more small venues have closed than have opened,” Lavin said in a press release. “This partnership with Paul and Jordan has enabled us to create an economic model that will not only allow a new Great Scott to be built, but for it to be successful for many more years.”

According to a release, the new Great Scott will maintain its “charming, dive-bar vibes” through a mix of hardcore punk shows, queer dance parties, and artist residences. There will be some improvements, however, including “modernized back-of-house improvements for artist comfort and state-of-the-art sound and lighting.”