Neil Young opened the room in September 1973 and came back fifty years later to the day - between those two bookings runs most of rock history. The Roxy Theatre at 9009 West Sunset Boulevard on the Sunset Strip opened on September 20, 1973, founded by Lou Adler and Elmer Valentine with partners including David Geffen, Elliot Roberts and Peter Asher, in a building that had housed the Largo strip club. The founders' brief was artist-first: a state-of-the-art club where musicians of every genre felt at home, next door to the Rainbow Bar and Grill that Adler and Valentine already co-owned - and Young's three opening nights were recorded and eventually released as Roxy: Tonight's the Night Live. The first decade alone reads like a hall of fame induction list - Bob Marley, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, the Ramones, Patti Smith, Frank Zappa, Genesis with Peter Gabriel, Aretha Franklin and the Sex Pistols all played the 500-capacity room. The stage made history beyond music: Adler premiered the American run of The Rocky Horror Show here in 1974 before producing the film, and the early opening acts included unknown comedians named Jay Leno, David Letterman and Arsenio Hall. Upstairs sits On the Rox, the invitation-only lounge whose 1970s membership - Nicholson, Belushi, Lennon during his Lost Weekend - generated as much legend as the stage below. Still owned by Lou Adler and his son Nic, the club remains a working room rather than a museum: nightly bills of developing acts, secret shows and album-release underplays keep the marquee current. The fiftieth anniversary in 2023 - Neil Young and Crazy Horse on the same dates he opened the club - confirmed the Roxy's standing: the Strip's definitive room, run by the family that built it. The club's place in the Strip's ecosystem is generational glue: the Whisky a Go Go up the block, the Rainbow next door and the Roxy between them form the surviving spine of the 1970s Sunset scene, with the Adler family's continued ownership keeping one corner of West Hollywood's mythology in the hands that made it.

Type: Theater / Concert Hall

Address: 9009 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, United States, 90069

Website: https://www.theroxy.com

Cover Charge: 1

Capacity: 500

Opening Date: 20/09/1973

Accessible