Live-music venues worth the trip in Detroit, Michigan

The 313 Presents theatre its own page calls Detroit’s crown jewel and one of the most iconic theatres and music venues in the world, drawing some of the biggest names in show business alongside award-winning Broadway musicals, interactive stage shows and treasured holiday productions.

The Live Nation theater that its own site bills simply as a Detroit concert venue, a room running a dated calendar of touring bills.

The AEG Presents rooms inside what the venue’s own page calls the world’s largest Masonic Temple, a Cass Corridor complex begun in 1920 and completed in 1926, whose Temple Theatre and Jack White Theatre carry the concert calendar among three theaters, one never finished.

The District Detroit arena that 313 Presents calls home to the Red Wings and Pistons, with premium spaces such as the Jack Daniel’s Club No. 7 and club seating, hosting sporting events, concerts, comedians and family shows.

MotorCity Casino Hotel’s concert hall, a room its own page calls an intimate setting where fans can get close to their favorite entertainers, creating the most intense concert experience possible for fans and artists alike.

The 6,000-capacity waterfront amphitheatre formerly called Chene Park, on the Detroit River, a room The Right Productions bills as Detroit’s premier waterfront concert venue and whose own listing says it hosts live summer concerts.

Live Nation’s Detroit hall, billed on its own site simply as a Detroit concert venue, a building that also carries The Shelter, whose shows the operator files under Saint Andrew’s Hall in its structured event data.

Midtown’s 1,100-capacity independent concert house, opened on April 1, 1915 to a C. Howard Crane design as one of the world’s largest movie theaters, a room its own page calls rugged and steeped in the city’s rich music history.

The art deco jazz club, vacant from 1985 and reopened under its original name in February 2006, in a downtown Detroit building the Campau family built to an Albert Kahn design, a club Cliff Bell fitted out to a Charles Agree interior of mahogany, brass and gold-leaf domes and one that its own page says has taken its place among the world’s premier jazz clubs.

Music Hall’s club room, opened in 2006 as the Jazz Cafe and re-christened in 2019 to honor Aretha Franklin, a space its own page calls one for jazz but also for blues, soul and rock ’n roll, open five to seven nights a week with a Sunday jazz jam, and one that keeps local artists as its primary focus.

An all-ages arts venue in Southwest Detroit that its own site calls an intimate performance space, serving Pepe Z pizza in house.

The Corktown bar and stage that its own site bills as Detroit’s premier live music venue featuring indie, punk, rock and alternative artists, with a dated show calendar that runs months ahead.

The Majestic complex’s upstairs room, carved out of eight bowling lanes in the early 90s for pool tables and a dance floor, a space whose basement motif its own page calls an ideal backdrop for Detroit’s burgeoning garage, alt rock and electronic scenes, and a room completely renovated in 2015 with an extended stage, enhanced sound and an additional bar.

A vegetarian cafe open since winter 2011 inside a former spice processing warehouse in Eastern Market, a room that shares its space with the nonprofit Trinosophes Projects, which its own page credits with hundreds of concerts, literary readings, exhibitions and film screenings per year.