Headliners

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Headliners is a mid-size venue in Louisville. Founded in July 1998, the 700-capacity venue would be notable as a mid-size venue at the time when Louisville largely had only dive bars and upscale concert halls. Since it's opening, the venue has hosted over a thousand concerts, along with burlesque, spoken word events such as The Moth StorySlam, weddings and much more.

In a previous life, Headliners was a cafeteria for a local distillery. It was largely unused when Mike Pollard Sr. and Fred Wooten Sr. bought it in 1998 and spent $250,000 turning it into a venue, in the process uncovering vintage murals that still line one wall. At 6,000 square feet, it boasts two bars, a large stage and is dedicated to music, with an emphasis on upcoming acts and jam bands though the range of music to perform there over the years is wide. The first band to ever perform there would be local band Satchel's Pawn Shop.

The venue is also notable for what appears to be a crashed plane next to the venue and is an attraction all it's own. Though the story told was a pilot lost control and crashed there in actuality it's the hull of an old plane placed at the hill adjacent to Headliners in the 1980s placed there to attract customers to a then-new bar in the Distiller Commons area above known as Cliffhanger's.

Selected Special Events at Headliner's

  • Multiple benefit shows would be hosted for Jason Noble (Rodan, Shipping News) who was battling a rare form of cancer at the time. The first would be on 31 January 2010, featuring DW Box, Ultra Pulverize, Lucky Pineapple and Wax Fang. Louisville punk band Endpoint would reunite for two shows at Headliners to benefit Noble on 14 & 15 May 2010. Support from the Endpoint reunions came from the likes of Cerebellum, Sunspring, Big Wheel and others.
  • A benefit show for Louisville music store Ear X-Tacy would be hosted on 26 December 2010, featuring Ben Sollee, Cabin, Jim James, Patrick Hallahan, Scott Carney and The Watson Twins.
  • On 14 April 2014 a live screening of the Slint documentary Breadcrumb Trail would be hosted at the venue. After the screening, an exclusive Q+A would be hosted by all four members of Slint, alongside director Lance Bangs.

On 23 March 2015, Todd Brashear would host a closing party for local video store Wild & Woolly Video at the venue. The event would feature an introduction by Brashear along with live performances by Stonecutters, Ultra Pulverize (their last live performance) and Vaderbomb. Brashear would notably also sing a cover of "Animal Boy" by The Ramones with Vaderbomb.

  • In July 2018, Headliners would announce a string of shows for the venue's 20th anniversary, with proceeds benefiting AMPED, MERF and Girls Rock Louisville.[11] The four shows celebrating the anniversary would be as follows:
  • 5 July 2018 - Electric Garden, Los Colognes, Alanna Fugate & The Boxwine Prophets
  • 6 July 2018 - Guided by Voices
  • 7 July 2018 - Love Jones, Satchel's Pawn Shop, DJ Cecil Richards (Rick Feather of Bodeco)
  • 8 July 2018 - (ohlm), Vice Tricks, Thomas Medicine, Incursion 502
  • On February 21 2020 a benefit show for Wink O'Bannon was hosted under the name "Wink Aid" featuring Juanita, Will Oldham, Jaye Jayle, The Get Down, Parlour, Freakwater and DJ Ricky Feather

Selected Performers at Headliner's

Louisville

Regional / Touring

  • Andrew W.K.
  • Atreyu
  • Bernie Worrell
  • Black Keys
  • The Bronx
  • Buried Alive
  • Carcass
  • Cannibal Corpse
  • Converge
  • Corrosion of Conformity
  • Dean Ween
  • Dinosaur Jr.
  • Don Caballero
  • Emma Ruth Rundle
  • Every Time I Die
  • Eyehategod
  • Fishbone
  • Flaming Lips
  • Flummox
  • Goatwhore
  • Guided By Voices
  • GWAR
  • Head Automatica
  • Henry Rollins
  • High on Fire
  • Ice Cube
  • Jucifer
  • Kid Dynamite
  • Kim Gordon
  • King Buzzo
  • Kurt Vile
  • Lamb Of God
  • Lou Barlow
  • Lucero
  • Mastodon
  • Meat Puppets
  • Melvins
  • Mogwai
  • Mono
  • Municipal Waste
  • Murder By Death
  • Napalm Death
  • Neil Hamburger
  • Neko Case
  • Pelican
  • Peter Hook
  • Piebald
  • Queens of the Stone Age
  • R.L. Burnside
  • Roky Erickson
  • Russian Circles
  • Shooter Jennings
  • Snapcase
  • Sonic Youth
  • Stephen Marley
  • Thursday
  • Type O Negative
  • Victor Wooten
  • Wanda Jackson
  • Weedeater
  • White Stripes

External Links