A good friend has moved to Durham and is sick of all the bluegrass shows there. Where do the good shows happen in these cities?

The Lincoln Theater in Raleigh is the main club for heavy/underground acts. I live in Winston-Salem (1.5 west) and good venues are pretty scarce in those parts. Ziggys has recently been reopened in Winston, but has yet to draw top notch acts. The best NC venue is The Orange Peel in Asheville (mountains), but it's about 4 hrs from Raleigh/Durham.

Thanks dude. Will pass on the info.

Tell your friend to look in the free local weekly The Independent which has ads for all the venues. He or she should be able to find good rock music if they want to, there's three towns and like 60 colleges right there.

Lincoln Theater might be too surreal and mind-blowing for the casual fan as the heavy/underground performers there are all disguised as mainstream tribute/jamband/national act has-beens like Keller Williams, Jars of Clay, They Might Be Giants, and ZOSO.

man, there's several local ones. The Casbah in Durham, Nightlight in Carrboro, Chapel Hill Underground in Chapel Hill, Divebar and Slims in Raleigh, Berkely Cafe in Raleigh. Shit there are more I can't think of. Stuff is spread out all over.

The cats cradle in chapel hill used to be cool

For what it's worth, Clutch and CoC are both playing shows at the Lincoln in March.

Raleigh also has King's Barcade and Volume 11