Live-music venues worth the trip in Providence, Rhode Island

Rhode Island’s 14,000-seat downtown arena, built in 1971 as the Providence Civic Center, where Elvis and Aerosmith played and where concerts still share the calendar with sporting events and family shows.

Providence’s oldest theatre, opened in 1915 and reborn in 2017 after years as Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel, a downtown ballroom where Johnny Cash and Kendrick Lamar both played and national tours still headline.

A multi-room Providence music hall whose interior was built by owner Nicolas Bauta, with Fulcrum Acoustic sound in its Ballroom and Lounge, and rooms its own site says are becoming favorite stops in national tours.

An unjuried, uncensored, all-ages nonprofit arts organization founded in 1985, whose Main Stage and Black Box on Empire Street give Rhode Island’s own artists a downtown Providence stage.

A North Main Street bar and music room open seven nights, anchored by a Tuesday open mic, a Wednesday blues jam, a monthly jazz jam and a first-Monday all-ages pub sing.