Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 03/07/2026 01:32:00

The building's first electric sign read Jesus The Light Of The World; the current one just says Roseland. The Roseland Theater at 8 Northwest 6th Avenue, at the corner of Burnside in Portland's Old Town Chinatown, was built in 1922 as the headquarters of the Apostolic Faith Church - storefronts below, a sanctuary above sized for a 70-piece orchestra and choir. Larry Hurwitz bought the building in 1981 and opened the Starry Night nightclub the following year, a 1980s room whose stage saw Metallica, the Beastie Boys, Blue Oyster Cult and the Red Hot Chili Peppers - and whose history darkened when the club's young publicity agent was murdered in a hallway in 1990, a crime Hurwitz was convicted of a decade later. The venue took its current name with the 1991 ownership change, and promoter David Leiken's Double Tee Concerts - which acquired full ownership in December 1994 - rebuilt its reputation around a simple goal: arena-level production in a 1,400-capacity room. The alumni list since spans the American songbook - Prince, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Ray Charles, Tina Turner, Pearl Jam, the Pixies, Bonnie Raitt, Snoop Dogg and four Phish nights - across an all-ages room hosting 150-plus shows a year. Successive renovations have poured into sound, lighting, dressing rooms and the roof, while the upstairs-hall layout keeps the essential geometry: an open floor, a wrap of balcony seating and the blue-lit vertical sign marking the Burnside corner. Operated since 2024 by Mammoth Northwest, the Roseland remains what it became in the nineties - Portland's default mid-size room, the rung between the clubs and the arenas that every touring act climbs through. The building's church-era balcony survives as the venue's seated tier, and the Roseland Grill downstairs runs as a second, smaller stage - a 21-and-over room whose bookings warm up the crowds heading to the hall above.