Small City, Big Sound: In Post-Pandemic World, Kingston’s Music Scene Comes Roaring Back

When Peter Himberger and Drew Frankel stepped into an old Catholic schoolhouse in Kingston’s historic Uptown for the first time in 2021, the pandemic had devastated the city’s music scene. Beloved venues like BSP Kingston, with its 1,500-person auditorium, and the folk music hub The Anchor had shuttered their doors. Yet ironically, Covid also drove a new wave of young artists from New York City into the area, bringing fresh energy to an arts scene that had been quietly building momentum before the pandemic. 

Himberer and Frankel, longtime Hudson Valley residents and co-founders of Impact Concerts and Artist Management, felt the moment was ripe to start a venue that could harness that energy. Three years later, on New Year’s Eve, inside the schoolhouse’s former multipurpose auditorium, they debuted Assembly with two sold-out nights featuring the American folk rock band The Felice Brothers. With a 450-person capacity, it’s now Kingston’s second-largest venue, after the Ulster Performing Arts Center.

Assembly’s debut signaled a turning point in Kingston’s creative landscape. The city’s music scene has reemerged from the pandemic with fresh energy, drawing the attention of music lovers on both sides of the river.

“It’s been really interesting seeing the evolution of Kingston,” said Lara Hope, director of programming at O+, the nonprofit behind the city’s annual music and arts festival of the same name. “There’s been so much change in the past decade-plus.”

On a 90-degree Wednesday night in June, the signs of this renewal can be found in the cool backrooms of dive bars and concert venues scattered across town, alive with music and movement. At Keegan Ales, an older crowd lingers over pub food and craft beers while a bluesy jazz quartet fills the space with sultry vocals and driving bass lines. Across town, musicians trickle into the Unicorn Bar through a red velvet curtain, past neon lights and disco balls, for a late-starting improvisational jam session. Saxophones, accordions, and spoken word blur into performance art beneath swirling projections and red stage lights. Just down the street at Tubby’s, the bar’s back room is packed shoulder to shoulder as a new local psychedelic noise trio Wilde Vier opens for the experimental funk band Basic. 

Scenes like these unfold almost nightly across Kingston, with live music filling intimate bars, converted industrial spaces, and mid-sized venues like Assembly. What makes the scene special, musicians say, isn’t just the volume and quality of performances, but the sense of community that underpins them. Many shows, from open mics to improv sessions, invite audience participation, and venue lineups are often shaped in partnership with local organizations and community input. Local and touring acts often share the same bill, drawing audiences for emerging artists and helping Kingston build a reputation as a live music destination. The result is a music scene that feels communal, creative, and distinctly rooted in place.

In only a few other cities of 20,000 residents, Hope noted, can live music be found nearly every night of the week. “It’s really, really special and magical. And I think that’s what’s also attracting people here,” she said. 

Himberger and Frankel say that the community response to Assembly’s opening has been overwhelming and more immediate than expected. They had planned to start slow and intentionally and then ramp up over time. “We had laid out projections over a few years,” Frankel said. “Thus far, in our first few months, we’re a lot busier in terms of the number of events that we’re doing on a monthly basis than we had anticipated.” The interest reflects the real need that existed for a venue space of Assembly’s size and style, he said. 

In its first six months, the venue has twice caught the attention of The New York Times, featured in its “36 Hours in the Hudson Valley” travel feature and in a write-up about a season finale watch party for the Apple TV+ series Severance. The event, co-hosted by Phoenicia Diner and Eng’s, a Chinese restaurant in downtown Kingston, both of which appeared as filming locations in the show, included costumes, dance-offs, themed snacks, and other Severance-inspired festivities.

Just last month, the venue also hosted three well-known singer-songwriters—Sara Bareilles, Natalie Merchant, and Rachael Yamagata—each with ties to the Hudson Valley, for a benefit supporting the Ulster Immigrant Defense Network, Frankel said. 

Kingston’s live music scene is largely concentrated in the Midtown Arts District, where a stretch of Broadway is home to a cluster of intimate venues—Tubby’s, Night Swim, and Keegan Ales—that are drawing impressive, diverse talent. Tubby’s, a neighborhood dive bar with space for just 100 people, regularly books the same artists who perform in much larger venues in New York City. That is “proof of a lot of really devoted bookers in the area, who have a lot of grit and determination to get these artists here,” said Jordan Budd, Marketing and Public Relations Assistant at Impact Concerts. But it also speaks to the artists themselves, he added, “noticing that it is worth coming here.”

Each venue offers something distinct. Tubby’s leans eclectic and experimental, with shows on both weeknights and weekends. Keegan Ales hosts more straightforward rock and cover bands five nights a week, with an all-ages vibe. Night Swim blends laid-back bar energy with live indie sets and open mics. Snapper McGee’s keeps the punk scene alive, and the Unicorn Bar has become a key gathering space for the LGBTQ+ community. On weekends, spots like West Kill Supply’s Kingston Tap Room adds more music to the mix. DIY shows also occasionally pop up in residential backyards; one, called Terrapin Kitchen, hosts shows around the solstices and equinoxes. Details of these shows can be discovered on Instagram accounts like @diykingston or through Reddit threads like r/hudsonvalley. 

Many of these venues emerged or evolved after pandemic-era closures. The Beverly shuttered in 2021 and was reborn with new owners in the same space as Unicorn Bar. The Anchor closed its doors in 2022, and the space later reopened as Night Swim. What’s made these venues thrive, owners say, is deep local investment and collaboration. Assembly, for example, has quickly become a flexible, community-driven space, hosting not only venue-booked concerts but also a wide range of local events in partnership with community organizations. In its first six months, it has held queer pride dance parties, burlesque shows, Sunday morning ecstatic dance sessions, and youth performances by students from the local music school Rock Academy.

“We want it to feel like a place that belongs to the community,” Frankel said. Himberger added, “Artists can come and get paid to play, and that’s great. But to have a really great show, they have to feel part of the community, and the community has to feel part of them.”

That model resonates with the younger, post-pandemic population that’s moved to Kingston for its creative energy and cultural life, Himberger said. Unlike nearby towns that cater mostly to weekend visitors, Kingston has a full-time population that’s deeply invested in local culture, a factor that’s essential to sustaining its arts scene, said Ben Senterfit, who founded The Community Music Space, a music school in Red Hook. 

That same ethos drives the O+ Festival. At the festival, held in early October, participating artists receive healthcare, including dental and mental health services, at a clinic in exchange for their performances. “Historically, creatives are un-and-under-insured,” Hope said. In the 15 years since the festival’s founding, the organization has provided more than 6,000 health and wellness services to hundreds of artists and musicians, she said. The festival also doubles as a springboard for local musicians. At least half the lineup is homegrown, Hope said. That creates opportunities for networking, touring, and collaboration with visiting artists, she explained. 

Together, the community focus and the new venues have made Kingston’s scene feel both vibrant and interconnected. “There’s just so much to uncover that I didn’t know about,” said Impact Concert’s Jordan Budd. His father, Dan Budd, who owns Taste Budd’s Cafe in Red Hook and plays guitar in his longtime bluegrass band, Grass Fed, added, “It’s starting to define the culture of Kingston in a way that’s very diverse.” The two recently attended a Cumbia show together at Tubby’s, he said. “[Those shows] bring out these different sections of the community that you might not expect to see around here,” Jordan Budd said.

The scene also thrives thanks to individuals like Scott Pasch, owner of the independent record label DCxPC, who moved to Kingston from Florida and now runs monthly Sunday matinee punk shows at Snapper McGee’s. Pasch’s approach blends out-of-town and local acts. “I usually book two to three out-of-town bands, bringing them in from as far as Philly or Baltimore, sandwiched by locals,” he said. 

What defines a meaningful music scene for Pasch is the community that is building and sustaining it. A music scene “doesn’t inherently have to have a lot of bands, per se, but it has to have the ability for bands to come through and play, and it has to have the sort of people that come out, who are inclusive, who want to encourage new people to come,” he said.

That ethos shows up in the mutual support between venues in Kingston. Last month, he said, he had a show at Snappers, while another musician he knows had organized a show at another venue, Night Swim. “But we’re both promoting each other’s stuff,” he said. “We don’t get offended. It’s a rising tide lifts all boats situation.”

The city’s cultural energy now extends beyond its bars and stages. “People are having more house concerts. There’s music in restaurants,” Hope said. Frankel also noted that the music scene has emerged alongside a broader wave of creativity, including new restaurants and the transformation of industrial buildings into studios and galleries.

Still, some worry that as Kingston’s music scene draws more people in, it could face the same challenges as other Hudson Valley towns, where thriving art scenes have priced out the very creatives who made them appealing. Hope said that the pandemic has made it harder for artists to afford living in the area, and that developing more affordable housing will be key to keeping the city accessible. 

But for now, the music scene keeps growing, sustained by locals who perform, organize, and show up week after week.

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Here is a list of several popular Kingston venues:

 

 

Assembly	A concert venue and event space located in the historic and vibrant Uptown / Stockade District, featuring a wide variety of music and events.	236 Wall St 3rd Floor, Kingston, NY 12401 Facebook: Assembly Kingston Instagram: @assemblykingston
Keegan Ales	An all-ages pub featuring straightforward rock, cover bands, and more five nights a week.	20 St James St, Kingston, NY 12401
Night Swim	Laid-back bar, with live indie sets and open mics.	​​744 Broadway, Kingston, NY 12401 Facebook: Night Swim Instagram: ​@nightswimkingston
Snapper Magee’s	A casual, dive-y bar, often featuring live punk bands.	59 N Front St Kingston, NY 12401 Facebook: Snapper Magee’s Instagram: @snappermagees
Tubby’s	An intimate, independently owned bar and music venue located in the Midtown neighborhood of Kingston, NY.	​​586 Broadway, Kingston, NY 12401 Facebook: Tubby’s Kingston Instagram: @tubbyskingston
Unicorn Bar	Unicorn Bar is an event venue, bar and eatery that celebrates the intersection of live music, performance, creativity and queerness.	224 Foxhall Ave, Kingston, NY 12401 Facebook: Unicorn Bar Kingston Instagram: @unicornkingston
West Kill Supply’s Kingston Taproom	The Catskill-based brewery’s taproom features live music and events most weekends.	602 Broadway Unit 2, Kingston, NY 12401 Facebook: West Kill Brewing LLC Instagram: @westkillbrewing
Ulster Performing Arts Center	With a seating capacity of 1,500, UPAC offers year-round entertainment including touring artists of the highest quality in theater, dance, music, opera, and other performance genres.	601 Broadway, Kingston, NY 12401 Facebook: Ulster Performing Arts Center
O+ Festival	An annual music festival, held in early October, featuring many local bands, alongside touring acts, where participating artists receive healthcare in exchange for their performances.	601 Broadway, Kingston, NY 12401 Facebook: O+ FESTIVAL Instagram: @opositivefest

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