San Francisco has a denser and better-graded live music infrastructure than a city of eight hundred thousand people has any right to, and its most useful feature is that the rooms come in clean capacity steps. There is a good venue at roughly every size from a hundred and fifty people to five thousand, and each step has a distinct character. Because touring acts get routed by capacity, the size of the room tells you a great deal about what kind of night it will be - often more than the genre does.
Show times, door times and whether a room is all-ages vary enormously across this ladder, and the good small shows sell out quietly. Tell Karpo what night you are free and what size room you want.
The big rooms: two to five thousand
At the top, the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and the larger theatres handle the shows that would otherwise be in an arena. These are proper events - long queues, early doors, expensive drinks, and a sound experience that depends heavily on where you are standing. If you are seeing a major touring act, this is where they will be, and the trade-off is scale over intimacy.
The Warfield on Market Street sits a step below at around two thousand, in a 1922 theatre with a balcony, and it is one of the better big rooms in the country because it retains a theatre's sightlines. The general rule at this size: a ticket in the balcony is usually a better experience than the floor unless you are prepared to arrive early and commit to standing near the front.
The Fillmore, which is its own category
The Fillmore holds roughly twelve hundred and is the most historically significant room in American rock music that is still operating as a normal venue. The traditions are intact and worth knowing: a bowl of apples by the door, a poster handed to you on the way out, and the chandeliers and the upstairs gallery of framed posters that function as a small museum of the last sixty years.
As a room it is flat-floored with a balcony, which means sightlines depend entirely on where you stand and how tall the people in front of you are. Arrive early if that matters. The upstairs bar is generally calmer and the poster gallery is worth twenty minutes before the support act. It is the one venue in the city where the room itself is part of the reason to go.
The five-hundred to thousand step, which is the sweet spot
This is where San Francisco is strongest. Great American Music Hall on O'Farrell Street is a former bordello and dance hall from 1907, all gilt balconies and painted ceiling, holding around six hundred, with a seated dining option upstairs for some shows. It is possibly the most beautiful mid-sized music room in the country and the sound is genuinely good.
The Independent on Divisadero holds about five hundred, is unpretentious and rectangular, and consistently books acts a year before they move up to bigger rooms - which makes it the best value in the city for seeing something before it gets expensive. The Chapel in the Mission, in a former mortuary chapel with a high wooden ceiling, is the third of this tier and the most atmospheric. If you do not know what you want to see, pick a night at one of these three and trust the booking.
The small rooms: under three hundred
Bottom of the Hill in Potrero is the classic small club - around three hundred capacity, a patio, decades of history as the room where bands play before anyone knows them, and a booking policy that is genuinely adventurous. This tier is where local music actually lives, and it is cheap: tickets frequently under twenty dollars, sometimes under ten.
Below that sit the bar back rooms and the venues that are bars first - places in the Mission, the Haight and the Tenderloin with a stage in the corner and no cover or a small one at the door. The quality is variable by definition, but the ratio of great nights to money spent is the best in the city, and this is the tier where you might see three bands for the price of a cocktail somewhere else.
Choosing by size, practically
If you want a guaranteed good night with people you are visiting: the five-hundred to thousand tier, because the rooms are beautiful, the sound is good and the shows start and finish at civilised times. If you want to see a specific act you already love: whatever room they are in, and buy early. If you want to discover something: the small rooms, and go on a weeknight when the bills are longer and stranger.
One structural note about this city: San Francisco's shows start and finish earlier than in New York or Los Angeles. Doors at eight and a headliner on by nine-thirty or ten is common, and rooms often need to be clear by half past eleven or midnight because of residential neighbours. That is good news if you are getting a train home and bad news if you were planning to eat afterwards - kitchens here mostly stop by then.
Practical notes
Ticketing: the mid-sized rooms sell out quietly for good acts, so buy ahead rather than at the door. Ages: many venues are twenty-one and over, some are all-ages with a wristband system - check before travelling. Timing: doors around eight, headliners nine-thirty to ten, and most rooms finished by midnight. Getting home: check the last BART train on your line before you go, because the Owl bus alternative is slow. Eating: SF kitchens stop between half past eight and half past nine, so eat before rather than after, or plan on the Mission. Cash is useful for small door charges. And the Fillmore's free poster is real - take it on the way out.
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Ask Karpo first
Choosing a room size is easy; finding out who is actually in that room on the night you are free is the tedious part. Ask Karpo what is on tonight at the size you want, whether it is all-ages, and whether you will make the last train home afterwards.
