Kings

Kings is not closed anymore!! Having great music summer of 2023!! Excellent sound. Great place. Go there

This is a great spot to see live music in downtown Raleigh! The bartenders are great, and there's plenty of space to dance to your favorite band or sit in the back and sip on your drink. The stage if quite large and they have a lot of amazing local bands. Can't wait for this pandemic to be over to get back and see some more live music!

I attended a few small indie concerts here. I love it! Such a nice, intimate venue. Acoustics around the stage were solid. There's no such thing as a bad seat here. Very relaxed atmosphere. Bartenders were attentive without being overbearing. I'll definitely have to come back for future concerts! I'm sure this is also a good place for after work drinks or just a good place for a break from the hum drum of the week.

Oh mighty King Neptune! It's hard to beat the double-decker action at Kings Barcade and Neptune's Parlour. Down below it's all dark and cave-like, perfect to get your drank on. Up top at King's Barcade, things are a BIT brighter but not much so. Pop up the stairs, pay the cover and step into King's cavernous space. Stage to the left, muppets on display in front and drinky-bar to your right. Sidle up for a draft brew or cocktail and get ready to enjoy some music. Or maybe a zombie show. Or maybe some improv comedy. King's books a LOT of different acts and I've seen everything from local bands to actors kidnapping Morgan Freeman to our own Susan Z, attacking and munching on an unsuspecting zombie victim. (I kid you not...)So yeah, King's is pretty decent, a good mix of music and more. The crowd is more along the creative-hipster vein but not overboard. If you really want to see a lot of beards, plaid and chucks, go downstairs for that! All in all I'm pretty good with King's. Maybe not my favorite venue but good enough to keep myself entertained on a Friday or Saturday evening...

My girlfriend and I were on a weekend stay in Raleigh and were looking for some live music - we noticed that there was a band playing at Kings -- we're the type who like to be out and about so we shrugged and said 'what the heck' - we ventured out to Kings to see the show. Kings is kind of a dive - it's sort of a hole-in-the-wall, but that's really all part of the charm of going to see a new act who play way too loud and are just having fun on the stage right? The bands were indeed way too loud and hard to understand, but it was a good time. The venue itself could stand a face-lift, but for the price of the show it was perfectly fine. There was a place to sit at the bar on the opposite side from the stage (for us older folks) -- which was nice.

Great local, great bartenders but the sound. It's a small venue and I just feel if it hadn't been quite as jacked up as it was I could have really enjoyed the experience. I'm not saying I wanted it acoustic but on a Monday night with a smaller crowd size the sound definitely could have been adjusted for a better showing of the bands talent.

Whoa, Kings.Kings takes the crown for the best music venue in Raleigh. Their booking has gotten better every year that I've lived in Raleigh. I've seen some of the best shows of my life here - including Hopscotch Music Festival, M83, Hum, the SparkCon burlesque show, The Love Language, Kooley High, King Mez, Active Child, the Dangling Loafer comedy, etc.The bartenders do an amazing job, often handling a large crowd and a full bar. I do think it's good etiquette to avoid the specialty cocktails at packed shows - if you're not too picky, go with a Narragansett tall boy for $3. They have a cooler full of those guys.Make sure to pop down to Neptunes after a show if you still have some energy. The cocktails are great down there, and dance parties start around midnight on the weekends.Pro tip: There's a water dispenser at the bar near the entrance. Somehow, they manage to keep it almost always full.

A cozy venue that squeezes out a band's energy, concentrating it into good sound, fun crowds, and groovy jams. I've seen several shows here (The Avett Brothers, The Sheepdogs, Holy Ghost Tent Revival, just to name a few, though I've seen non-local bands here too) and it's been an awesome show every time. It's a great stop in a Hopscotch Festival and SparkCon tours. Their reoccurring events (Dangling Loafer, The Great Cover Up, etc) are incredible, too. Great Raleigh staple. There's a high level of FOMO when you skip events at Kings.Tip: If you forgot your earplugs, they sell some at the bar for $1.

So my last statement really did apply. I returned to kings yesterday to see protomartyr, and it was a totally different vibe. The crowd was on the older end of the millennial spectrum (born in the early '80s), and I would say a good third of the crowd had warby parkers perched on their nose (myself included). I guess people who are into post-punk are less inclined to fall down drunk and throw stuff? It was pretty well attended but not totally sold out, so there was a little bit of breathing room. Also, there were people jumping around and dancing or whatever you want to call the facsimile of dancing that is on display at post-punk shows. People were moving. It's better than shows or clubs where people are just standing there and not even nodding their heads? Like, that's the least you could do? Come on, guys. But the crowd was chill enough that I felt perfectly safe near the front of the stage. I think even the band felt the chill vibes, because there was a group hug at the end amongst the band. My only comment is maybe the merch table isn't ideally located. If there's a long line after the show, it blocks access the the bathrooms and coat rack. It can also be awkward to navigate around on your way to the free water dispenser by the bar (btw no charge for the paper cups, and they're a decent size, and the water is cold, so thanks for that), and you have to get by the line to actually leave too. I was also bummed that the delicious Belgian beer I tried from the Raleigh brewing company was no longer on tap, but hey, at least the drinks are reasonably priced. $8 for a jack and Coke isn't the cheapest, but it's also not the most expensive for raleigh. And yeah, kings is a lot smaller than the ritz, but the ritz is a dump in the middle of nowhere, and kings is right downtown. So I imagine rent might be higher for kings, but they manage to charge a good two dollars less than at the ritz (and also tend to have more interesting bands but whatever). I would rather eat a moldy piece of bread than go back to the ritz. PS the Moore square parking garage by beasley's and chuck's is also pretty close and parking is free by the time most shows at kings end. So yeah. Good atmosphere, decent sound, nice drinks, great bands, and a chill crowd if you're lucky and hit up kings on the right night.

Kings is a pretty cool venue. Located on the second floor, there's a bar, stage, and plenty of room to move around. Acoustics are pretty good too.