The Rathskeller
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The Rathskellar (known as The Rat for short) was a Kenmore Square live music venue in Boston, Massachusetts that opened in 1974. As implied by its name (German: "meeting cellar"), the Ratkskellar was a dimly-lit establishment with a bar and restaurant on the street level and a rock club in the basement. It is notable for being one of Greater Boston's premier music venues for three decades and the starting point for the WBCN Rock & Roll Rumble.[1]
One Boston-area magazine describes:
There was also a new Ground Zero for live performance in Boston at that time. Deep below freaky-funky Kenmore Square, the Rathskellar (or, as everyone called it, “The Rat”) was a dingy subterranean dive bar that would appeal to the ever-burgeoning punk movement, and that hosted shows by everyone from Talking Heads and Tom Petty to Thin Lizzy and The Ramones. Everybody played there—and would continue to do so until the club finally closed its doors in 1997 amid a movement toward gentrification. [2]
The Rat also hosted such acts as the Cars, Pixies, the Dead Kennedys, and Replacements and Mr. Butch. It closed to make way for Hotel Commonwealth.
The Rat is also a venue in Guitar Hero II.
