With shows starting to really come back full swing this spring we’ve seen some new DIY venues in the area popping up, as well as some older venues returning to hosting DIY metal shows. I often hear people telling me they didn’t know certain shows or venues even existed, so hopefully this post will enlighten some of you on some of the places to catch upcoming metal bands play live. Of course you can always check out the handy DCHM calendar (here) for listings of every upcoming metal show in the area from DIY to arena bands.
First up this Friday, March 17th, (which is also St. Patrick’s Day) we’ve got the French death metal band Gorod appearing at Atlas brewery in the Ivy City neighborhood of Northeast DC. Originally scheduled to be at Pie Shop, it was moved to Atlas and will be the first public metal show there since they suddenly shut down last summer when the entire staff was let go. That halted all public operations in their tap room, including their scheduled upcoming metal shows. They’ve been open for months now with their new staff in place and this show will be their first with the new management so be sure to come out and help this show get a solid turn out so they’ll be happy to host more metal shows. Atlas was once at the center of the DC DIY metal scene and hopefully if things go well it can return to that status as a great place for metal shows in DC proper. You can check out the show’s Facebook event page here or buy a ticket from Etix here.
Then on the following night, Saturday, March 18th, there’s a free DIY metal show happening at the Döner Bistro in Leesburg, Virginia. The venue is starting to host regular metal shows on the 3rd Saturday of every month and this weekend’s line up includes the brand new stoner doom band Mammoth Rider along with the bands Druid Stone, Skomucon and Downe Lands. Hopefully they can get a decent turn out at this event and they venue will continue hosting more and more local metal bands there every month. More info on this show can be found on the Facebook event page here.
The next night, Sunday, March 19th, you can head over to Fat Tuesday’s on the back side of University Mall in Fairfax, Virginia, (near George Mason University) for a free show with a killer line up of local metal bands including old school thrashers Desolus, gothy/doomy (like a modern take on the Peaceville 3 sound) Torvus, Baltimore grind band Ixais and the war band Servitude. I’m pretty sure this is the dive bar’s first metal show since 2017, and a rare chance for NoVA fans to catch some of these great locals in Fairfax on a weekend night even. Hell, there’s 2 nights in a row of metal shows in NoVA and I’m not sure when the last time that happened was to be honest. Also, the bass player for Desolus is one of DCHM’s contributors so ya know, go out and support Vivek!
The final show I’m going to mention here isn’t until April 28th, but the Sky Lounge in Silver Spring has been getting a few metal (and other genre) DIY shows lately. At this show in late April the blackened death metal band Krvsade from Charlotte, North Carolina, will be coming up (give them a listen here) to play with the excellent local bands Nuclear Tomb (death/thrash), Sickdeer (black metal) and Goetia who are brand new (but include members of Genocide Pact and Deliriant Nerve). The venue is located on the 2nd floor at 11272 Georgia Ave and it should be a killer show. More details on the Facebook event page for this show here.
Of course you can always catch DIY shows at the already solidified venues like Pie Shop, The Runaway, Slash Run and Songbyrd but good turn outs at each of these four shows will help encourage those venues to start hosting more metal shows as well. I hope to see some of you at each of these!
DCHeavyMetal.com 