It has been 50 years since CBGB birthed the New York rock explosion led by Patti Smith, Talking Heads and the Ramones — a legacy that will be honored Sept. 27 at the first CBGB Festival. The event will be headlined by Iggy Pop and Jack White and will take place at Under the K Bridge Park, a new outdoor venue literally underneath the Kosciuszko Bridge roadway in Brooklyn.
The 21-band, three-stage lineup will also sport Sex Pistols with new singer Frank Carter, Johnny Marr, Marky Ramone, the Damned, Gorilla Biscuits, Melvins, Lambrini Girls, the Linda Lindas, Lunachicks, Scowl, Cro-Mags, Murphy’s Law and Pinkshift. Attendees will be treated such hallowed memorabilia as the original CBGB’s bar and stage
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Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday (May 16), and a trove of 350 GA tickets will be available only at the Music Hall of Williamsburg box office the next day for residents under 25. The “Young Punk” discounted ducats will sell for $73, in line with the year CBGB opened.
Pop hasn’t played a headlining show in New York in nine years, although he has appeared at such events as the annual Tibet House benefit and a symphonic celebration of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, which was held just days before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.
Other artists on the bill have longstanding connections to the music of the CBGB era, with White frequently covering Iggy and the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog” and Marr featuring Pop’s “The Passenger” in his live set lists in 2024. Marky Ramone and the Damned are also no strangers to the original club, with the former having played it countless times with the Ramones and the latter among the first U.K. punk bands to visit in April 1977.
CBGB closed its doors on the Bowery in 2006 after a farewell concert by Smith. Its building is now occupied by a John Varvatos store, although the CBGB name has since been licensed for a restaurant at Newark International Airport.
In 2018, Target provoked the ire of New York music lovers by tweaking CBGB’s famous awning to celebrate the opening of a new retail location in Astor Place. The four-lettered acronym was swapped out for “TRGT” and “BANDS,” which referred not to music but complimentary Band-Aids and exercise bands with Target logos on them.
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