Bars & Clubs

Comments (1) Best Venue for Live Music - 2008

The Fillmore Miami Beach at the Jackie Gleason Theater

When concert-production company Live Nation announced a rebranding of several storied music venues across the country, to be named after San Francisco's historic Fillmore, more than a few eyebrows raised. But Miami was one of the cities to benefit most from the retooling, with the company's takeover of the Jackie Gleason Theater. Sure, it boasted a star-studded past, but in recent years it had become a stale, moribund, pastel hulk used only intermittently. After several months of construction, the venue emerged, butterfly-style, a completely different being. With a cozy interior of dark colors and low lighting, tons of bars, and a revamped stage complete with stylish red velvet curtains, finally, here was a place where you'd actually want to hang out. And with a flexible capacity of several hundred up to a couple thousand, it fills in a much-needed venue gap in South Florida for bands that are too big for clubs but want to play a more intimate spot than an arena. The eclectic lineup has included everyone from Ricky Martin on opening night, to prog-futurists The Mars Volta, to no less than Jay-Z, in a pre-arena-gig "dress rehearsal." In short, it's a coup for both live-music-starved South Beach and for music fans who are now spared the drive to Broward and beyond.

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