Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 03/07/2026 01:11:00

A 22-year-old borrowed money from friends to book an unknown Athens band called R.E.M. - the show half-filled the room, the band told everyone, and Chicago got its defining rock club. Metro, at 3730 North Clark Street in Wrigleyville, opened as Cabaret Metro on 25 July 1982 and has run under founder Joe Shanahan ever since. The building came with history: the 1927 beaux-arts Swedish community center had become the Northside Auditorium Building and then Stages Music Hall - John Prine and Gang of Four played its earlier lives - before Shanahan, inspired by New York's Mudd Club and CBGB, gradually took over the main floor; the name honours the Paris Metro's maze of staircases. The booking list is alternative music's spine: Metallica's first Chicago show in 1983, a legendarily sweltering New Order night that melted equipment, and early or defining dates from the grunge era through Smashing Pumpkins - the hometown band most identified with the room - to today's touring class, all in an 1,100-capacity hall split between floor and balcony. Smart Bar completes the institution: Shanahan's basement dance club opened in July 1982 with house pioneer Frankie Knuckles as its first DJ, pushing house, industrial and techno from the start - Ministry premiered recordings there - and still runs weekend nights with a 420-capacity, no-frills devotion that has made it hallowed ground for American dance music. The independence is the point: four decades in, Metro remains family-owned in a consolidated concert industry - a four-storey ecosystem where tomorrow's arena acts play their first sold-out Chicago nights three blocks from Wrigley Field. Practical notes: the Addison Red Line stop is two blocks south - game nights at Wrigley snarl everything, so check the Cubs schedule before driving; the balcony rail offers the club's best sightlines and its own bar, all-ages shows are frequent with the bar segregated, and finishing a Metro gig downstairs at Smart Bar is the full Clark Street rite.