Exit/In
Nashville's scrappiest rock club, open since 1971. Jimmy Buffett, Emmylou Harris, and Drive-By Truckers all called this stage home. The sound is loud, the crowd is real, and the history on these walls is priceless.
Exit/In opened on Elliston Place in 1971 and became the room where Nashville's rock, punk, and Americana scenes actually happened, in a town otherwise obsessed with country radio. Jimmy Buffett played the first show here — the story goes that he was hanging around the Elliston Place Soda Shop across the street, noticed carpenters still building the stage, and was invited to play before the room was even finished. Over the decades the bill ran through R.E.M., the Police, Billy Joel, and a young Drive-By Truckers, plus Nashville institutions like Billy Block's long-running Western Beat Barn Dance that helped incubate the city's Americana scene in the '90s.
The club came close to disappearing in 2022, when its longtime owners lost their lease and the building's new owners, AJ Capital Partners, took over the property. After a stretch of uncertainty and a temporary closure, Exit/In reopened in 2023 under new management with its booking and calendar restored — the venue is operating today with a full slate of touring rock, indie, and Americana acts.
It still looks and feels like the club it always was: a boxy room on Elliston Place, a low stage, sticky floors, and a mural-covered facade that's outlasted several waves of Midtown development around it. Go for a touring act you'd otherwise catch in a bigger city's mid-size club — the room is small enough that there's no bad spot to stand.
Highlights
- —Jimmy Buffett's first-ever show was on this stage in 1971
- —Reopened in 2023 under new ownership after a 2022 closure scare
- —General-admission standing room — arrive early for a spot near the stage
- —Historically the home of Nashville's rock and Americana scenes, not country
- —Located on Elliston Place's old Rock Block, walkable from Vanderbilt
Insider tip
Check the calendar before you go — as a rebooked venue under new ownership, the lineup skews more national touring rock/indie now than the scrappy local bills of decades past.