By Victoria Wasylak Globe Correspondent
Updated August 27, 2025, 9:00 a.m.
Ask a music fan what’s missing from Harvard Square and the answers will vary — but you will get an answer.
Some folks might pine for the heyday of “the Pit,” the now-demolished outdoor seating area where counterculture pooled in the heart of the Square. Others would mourn the programming at Charlie’s Kitchen and Hong Kong Restaurant, two neighborhood eateries that once provided intimate performance spaces for independent artists but stopped hosting shows in recent years.
The potential responses vary by genre and era (an exhaustive, decades-spanning list of cultural losses in Harvard Square would gobble up the entirety of this column). But they all trace back to a similar notion: There are no longer many public or independently-operated spaces where artists can make a proper home in Harvard Square.
Cormac Hurley, a manager at a new venue and restaurant called Lou’s, says the area once produced “artists that have heritage in Harvard Square.” Folks like Joan Baez and Tracy Chapman, who weren’t necessarily from Greater Boston, or even New England, but who developed their careers in the neighborhood and, many years later, remain associated with it.
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“Being a part of that heritage, is, I think, what people miss in a lot of different ways,” says Hurley, the brand and event manager of the Brattle Street business.
Related
Lou’s, a new live music venue and restaurant, opens in Harvard Square this weekendEnd of an era: The Pit, a landmark of Harvard Square, is demolished
It’s notable, then, that Lou’s isn’t just carving out a space for more live music; it’s also curating a calendar of friendly faces. Since opening at the end of July, Hurley says the 289-person “jazz-adjacent” club has strived to be a place of discovery, booking Boston artists ranging from the trad jazz of Josiah Reibstein & The Hubtones to R&B from Aric B. and The Presidential Suites.
Many of the acts are booked for repeat performances a few weeks apart, offering the performers the chance to put down sturdy (or studier) roots in the scene.
Jazz guitarist Eric Hofbauer, the trio of South African-born jazz drummer Lumanyano Mzi, and Berklee student and viral singer-pianist Su Yavez, are a few of the performers who will return to Lou’s stage at the end of August and beginning of September, after helping welcome the first batches of guests into the venue’s 5,600-square-foot space. (At the opposite end of the venue, a listening area also accommodates guests who are tuned in to whichever DJ is spinning vinyl that evening.)
The speakeasy-esque den feels like an art deco twist on the space’s previous identities. The space at 13 Brattle St. was formerly the jazz bar Beat Brasserie (also called Beat Hotel), a sister business of The Beehive in the South End. In 2018, the space rebranded as Beat Brew Hall, broadening its focus to include a beer hall dining room, in addition to a back-room lounge and performance space. Beat Brew Hall survived the wrath of COVID-19, but only briefly; it shuttered in 2022 after a short-lived post-pandemic reopening.
As of last month, the “beat” goes on via Lou’s. But in the years between Beat Brew Hall’s final day and Lou’s elegant launch this past July, 13 Brattle St. was little more than a silent, vacant basement. Coincidentally, “vacant” is the exact emotional atmosphere of many public spaces that have cropped up around the Square. Think of chain restaurants with stiff, inhospitable seating (if any), and dystopian curiosities like the “Capital One Café,” a spine-chilling concept if there ever was one.
Some serial show attendees will see Lou’s as a fine complement to the Regattabar, the jazz club located in the Square’s Charles Hotel. Folks more inclined to seek out music at a dive bar might turn their nose up at such an elegant new establishment, or the idea of sipping $15 cocktails during showtime.
Personally, I don’t have a preference between swanky venues and scrappy ones. I just know that music is always better than a vacant silence.
GIG GUIDE
At TD Garden on Friday, Nine Inch Nails return to Boston for the first time since their doubleheader at the 2022 edition of Boston Calling, when the industrial rock project ended up headlining two of the festival’s three nights. The band’s polar opposite, the wholesome, backflipping pop singer Benson Boone, comes to the arena on Tuesday to support his sophomore album, “American Heart.”
A burst of 1990s and early aughts rock nostalgia rattles MGM Music Hall at Fenway this weekend, courtesy of performances from Simple Plan (Friday) and Coheed and Cambria with Taking Back Sunday (Saturday). Latin hip-hop and reggaeton artist Eladio Carrión continues his already jam-packed year — which includes releasing his April album “DON KBRN” and countless singles — at the venue on Wednesday.
Highlights from the North Shore include a Friday performance from Puerto Rican cuatro player and composer Fabiola Mendez at The Cut, and a Saturday visit from The Moody Blues frontman Justin Hayward at the Shalin Liu Performance Center.
Baltimore pop-R&B singer Gabby Samone, one of the standout contestants on the most recent season of “American Idol,” continues her career’s momentum at City Winery on Tuesday. Stella Cole summons charming jazz standards from her new record, “It’s Magic,” on Wednesday and Thursday at the winery.
And speaking of Harvard Square success stories, Campfire. Festival will spread performances from over 60 musicians across Labor Day weekend at Passim. It’s almost impossible to select highlights on a roster this robust, but some daily picks include Ana Schon (Friday), Gabriella Simpkins (Saturday), Anju (Sunday), and Dom the Composer (Monday).
NOW SPINNING
Canyon Lights, “Breathe Easy.” After staking their claim on the Billboard Blues chart in the Boston band GA-20, two former members — drummer Tim Carman and singer-guitarist Pat Faherty — strike out on their own in this new outfit. Joined by bassist Heather Gillis, Canyon Lights present classic, swampy blues gold on their debut LP, “Breathe Easy.” Don’t miss the satisfying spirals of guitar on standout track “Drivin’ Me.”
The Beaches, “No Hard Feelings.” Under most circumstances, a band repeating the formula of its breakthrough album on another project would be grounds for breaking out the dreaded “slump” label. But on the Beaches’ third LP, the Canadian band revels in the same wisecracking alt-rock as 2023’s “Blame My Ex,” conveying new emotional battle scars with familiar charm.
Tei Shi, “Make believe I make believe.” Tei Shi ought to return to Berklee College of Music — her alma mater — and teach a course on cross-genre cohesion. On her fourth album, the Argentina-born artist once again tinkers with her musical trajectory, crafting an intricate web of reggaeton rhythms, glittering synth-pop, and all of the gossamer sounds in between.