The St. Andrew’s Society of Detroit, founded in 1849 to assist recent immigrants from Scotland and to encourage appreciation of Scottish history and culture, claims to be the oldest such benevolent organization in Michigan, opened St. Andrew’s Hall as its home in 1908.

St. Andrew’s Hall is notable for having three venues in the building. The main floor, featuring a stage, can host an audience of up to 1,000. The upper level dubbed the Burns Room, in honor of Scottish poet Robert Burns, is a large open space that can handle several hundred patrons. The lower level, referred to as The Shelter, is a smaller venue that can hold at least 200.

By the late 1970s/early 1980s, St. Andrew’s Hall started being used beyond Scottish events as the Society started leasing out the venue for plays and concerts. Among the first to start booking events into the Hall was John Sinclair. The poet, writer, and political activist known for his love of jazz and, at one time, being the manager of the MC5, started by booking jazz and blues concerts into the Hall. Shows during that time included concerts featuring Marcus Belgrave, Sun Messengers, and the Detroit Blues Band.

Around the same time, 1982, Vince Bannon and his business partner, Amir Daiza, decided to move on from Clutch Cargo’s at the Women’s City Club near Detroit’s Grand Circus Park to booking at St. Andrew’s Hall in Bricktown.

In short order, St. Andrew’s Hall became the venue for any local or out-of-town act seeking to establish their credibility. Among the notable bands that played St. Andrew’s during their early days include R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Nirvana.

After running the venue for over a decade, Bannon and Diaza sold the operations at St. Andrew’s Hall in 1993. The club is now run by Live Nation.

A partial list of shows at St. Andrew’s Hall can be found on The Concert Database.

Have a story or information to share about St. Andrew’s Hall? You can do that here.

7 thoughts on “St. Andrew’s Hall

  1. I took my girlfriend at the time to see X in October, 1983. She was a bit of a preppy and when she came out dressed to go, it was in a pink Lacoste sweater. I said are you sure that’s what you want to wear to an X show? She stuck with it. As we gathered around the front steps waiting for the doors to open, there were some punk gals nearby, all in black. I distinctly remember that one of them had razor blade shaped earrings. At one point one of them said, loud enough to be heard in a 10 ft radius, “I SLAM preppies. HARD”. It was at that point I realized we would be making our way upstairs to stay out of the mosh. It was also the first time I’d seen such antagonism between an opening act and the audience. I can’t remember the name of the band but they were significantly different than X style-wise. After enduring loud booing throughout the show, the singer screamed, “One hundred thousand people dig us. Who digs YOU? Fucking no one!” Good times.

  2. St. Andrew’s Hall was a great place to see shows or enjoy Three Floors of Fun! The Shelter was a great spot at well. Bumped into several members of various bands playing pool or just hanging out. It was even better once they put in the new bathrooms. Spent many Friday and Saturday nights from about ’92 – ’99.

  3. Thanks for collecting the great history of all of these venues! Some suggestions to add to the list. Some are dance clubs rather than live venues but still it’d be nice to document the late 80s/early 90s scene before there’s nobody left to remember it.
    The Gold Dollar on Cass
    Mondays at The Warehouse.
    The Latin Quarter
    Alvin’s
    The Red Door on Willis
    Candyland
    Leland’s City Club
    Motor/ The Falcon Club
    Toots Coffee House

  4. Thanks for collecting the great history of all of these venues! Some suggestions to add to the list. Some are dance clubs rather than live venues but still it’d be nice to document the late 80s/early 90s scene before there’s nobody left to remember it.
    The Gold Dollar on Cass.
    Mondays at The Warehouse.
    The Latin Quarter.
    Alvin’s.
    The Red Door on Willis.
    Candyland or clubland?
    Leland’City Club.
    Motor/ The Falcon Club.
    Toots Coffee House

    1. Neil – Thank you for your comment and adding to the list.

      The focus of the site is around bands and venues in the post-Grande/pre-hardcore area with some small overlap. That means between 1977-1983. I used Bookie’s/Clutch Cargos (aka City Club)/St. Andrew’s Hall as the trunk of the tree because the same booker did all three places.

      Sadly, I don’t have the time nor the grant funding (Thank you Knight Foundation for backing this project back in 2017) to expand the effort. But I do agree with you all of those places are worthy of having their stories documented and told. I know from my own time in the Gold Dollar scene in the late 1990s/early 2000s since I was in diapers around when the Bookie’s era started. The reason for the project was to keep Detroit music history from being lost to time.

      If anyone would like to consider doing a project like this and trying for Knight Foundation funding, they should have a Knight Arts Challenge Detroit funding round coming up this year. https://knightfoundation.org/

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