Live-music venues worth the trip in Portland, Maine

An open-air steel pavilion that is a portion of the original rail depot brought to Thompson’s Point after Union Station’s demolition in 1961, a 6,500-capacity room that hosts the State Theatre’s summer concert series and is surrounded by riverside lawn.

A 6,200-seat county-owned arena that opened in 1977 and was renovated in 2012, home ice for the Maine Mariners and the room Portland turns to for arena-scale touring headliners.

Portland’s flagship touring room on Congress Street, a theater with a standing general-admission main floor and two seated balconies where national headliners play, with a summer series outdoors at Thompson’s Point.

A purpose-built downtown concert hall that opened in April 2017 where the old Asylum club stood, a multi-level room the operator says holds over 1,000, with a balcony, a VIP lounge and a downstairs venue.

A nonprofit listening room in Portland’s West End at the entrance to the Arts District that bills itself as Portland, Maine’s Listening Room, with a warm and intimate atmosphere for unforgettable live music.

A nonprofit multi-disciplinary art center on Congress Street that champions artists and an open exchange of ideas, whose performance room doubles as Portland’s independent touring stage.

A twenty-lane downtown bowling alley with award-winning food, whose roof and lanes keep a band calendar between frames and whose rooftop deck is fed from a 1960s Airstream.

A Congress Street dive bar and rock club established in 1983 on Brown Street and since moved to its current room, self-described as having no taps, with bottles, cans, stiff pours and a rotating wine selection.

A large urban bar and event space in a Washington Avenue brewery that calls itself a cultural hub, with the Gallery 49 art space and a stage that books touring bands.

A Temple Street club with state-of-the-art sound and lighting that calls itself a beacon for music enthusiasts, the downtown room for club-size touring bookings.