Originally published at: Exact replica of original 9:30 Club to be built in DC | Boing Boing
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COVID has of course put the kibosh on my live music attendance, but the current 9:30 is my absolute favorite music venue. And the cupcakes are DELISH. Can’t wait to see this replica of the old site.
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I remember the old 9:30. Are they going to bring all of the rats from the old location?
Is the pole going to be in the middle of the stage?
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How does one replicate “sketch”?
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Clearly some of us have been there and are not terribly impressed at bringing back a venue that should have been condemned twenty years before it became famous.
Great musical memories, sure. Terrible, craptastic place to enjoy them.
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It was a great place to be close to the musicians, I think because the stage was so low to the ground (at least in my memory it was, especially compared to something like The Bayou, or The Roxy). It was just a concrete room with a stage, a bar, pillars, and an awful smell. The energy of every show I saw there was always amazing though. I think walking down the long entryway always helped to build the anticipation.
I miss the clubs of that era-- or maybe I miss being the age where I would go to the clubs of that era.
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Go! You just feel old while the house lights are up, at least I do, but you still get to listen to the music. 
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That’s very cool.
But as a historian, I also wonder about trying to recapture lighting in a bottle like this? Didn’t they also build a replica of CBGBs in Vegas?
I think that’s it, really.
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Yeah, I can’t help but think “The map is not the territory”
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Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. Took me a second to think it through! 
But yeah, it makes total sense.
Part of what made/makes these spaces special is the community that they foster. There are probably thousands of all ages music clubs all over the places that are just as special and community building as 9:30, CBGBs, or the Masque were… To some degree, as @rhdc indicated, some of this is just Late boomers/ Gen Xers nostalgia at play here. That’s not BAD, really, as nostalgia plays a function too, and can help in creating a sense of urgency for historic preservation for these kinds of sites. I guess that’s not what is really happening here. It’s not the original building but a replica? I would love to see it turned into a museum space to the DC punk scene, honestly. That would be the best use of it. Sure, you can still do shows, but it should be there to primarily house a museum and maybe even a punk archive, if there is room.
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I grew up in the area and my FB friends from that era almost unanimously asked: “
How are they going to recreate the smell?”
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I miss the “3 bands for 3 bucks” nights where we could see Minor Threat, Black Flag, and the Circle Jerks.
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How will they recreate Ian MacKaye criticizing us for drinking too much?
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Aw geeze, he knows I’m drinking right now!
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Lesseee…replica 9:30 club…snagged that Neve console from Sound City…yes. Yes, it could work.
Dave Grohl is going to spend his fortune reconstructing the surroundings of his twenties. By the time he dies he won’t have seen anything from the current century for at least a decade, and possibly more.
BTW, anybody here got an I Got Maced At DC Space t-shirt?
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Why not put a copy of 924 Gilman next door to make the 927 club?
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Hey, It’s Henry Garfield.
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