Love Letter to the DNA Lounge
- Hectic
- Aug 1
- 5 min read
Updated: Aug 4
The funny thing is, when I first started going to the DNA Lounge, I thought it was too big and corporate. Not my speed at all.
(Some) Memories of the 90s-early 00s
Back in the 1990s I wanted to go to metal and punk rock shows (and a lot of them back then were mixed punk / metal bills, a revolutionary concept to me from growing up in Boston in the 80s, where even punk and hardcore did not mix that often).
And I wanted to see shows in the Mission in warehouse spaces that held regular shows to make rent, or unventilated basement spaces where everyone was smoking so much you could barely see the band. (Remember cigarettes? I don’t miss those.) For actual legal venues I loved small rock clubs like the Chameleon (now Amnesia) or the CW Saloon (now a sushi place), or Mission Records (now a hair salon, where presumably fewer people live in the storage mezzanine than back in the day). The preceding sentence reads like an RIP list of clubs.
Sure I saw a few great shows at the DNA back then, like Old Grandad, Monster Truck Driver, and Captured by Robots in 1997. Old Grandad was headlining with Monster Truck Driver, a high speed punk band from Seattle supporting, and the insane Captured by Robots spectacle opening what must have been one of their earliest shows.
That was a Tuesday night show put on by the great promoter and underground scene stalwart Scott Alcoholocaust (RIP). To try to draw larger crowds, he had tricycle races in between bands for a bit. That was back when the DNA had an oval bar in the middle of the floor, a setup more like a dance club than a live concert venue, effectively a built-in circular track. It was pretty wild.
I have no recollection of the tricycle races, though Will claims it happened at a few shows, and even had an official name that is lost to the internet (a la Stinky’s Peepshow). I sure as hell remember Captured by Robots though, that was a musical and engineering spectacle (even back then) you don’t soon forget.
The DNA Today: My Comfort Place for Metal
These days, the DNA Lounge is my favorite club in San Francisco. It has more heavy metal shows than any other venue (more on that below), and is a comfortable place to see live music – great sound and not too small, not too big.
The main room at the DNA has some unique zig-zagging staircases on the sides of the high stage. I don't know for sure but assume that these are more useful for dance clubs than for metal bands, though the occasional bass player makes use of it to play up alongside the drum riser).
And the wrap-around balcony has another large bar, and plenty of good spaces to see the band from (a bit easier to navigate and with more vantage points than the old school balcony at the Great American Music Hall, though I also like that club). The balcony is only open when a show has sold well, otherwise they keep everyone downstairs to be closer to the band.
There’s a separate smaller room “Above DNA”, over their pizza place next door. I’m not crazy about the upstairs room for thrash or death metal, since it is a deep and narrow space. So when the inevitable pit starts, even standing against the walls in the front is not safe from being part of the pit. But for slower live music it is a pretty intimate space, a small rock club within a larger club.
Heavy Metal at the DNA Lounge
In the first two decades of the 2000s, I saw occasional metal shows at the DNA, when a band that I had to see was coming through. (Obituary with Pallbearer in 2018 springs to mind). But since the pandemic with Slim’s on the same block closing, the DNA seems to be getting a large percentage of San Francisco metal shows, certainly for touring bands. Thanks to Cip Cipriano, the metal-loving manager who books the bands, and has Will DJ most metal shows.
I’ve been seeing 6-10 metal shows a year there recently. A few highlights: 2025: Nefarious record release and Decapitated / Incantation. 2024: U.D.O. and Raven / Vicious Rumors. And in 2023, when things were starting to get back to “normal” from the pandemic, Venom Inc. / Exhumed, Vader / Krisiun, and Rotting Christ.
Support Live Music: Drink!
The DNA is a surprisingly good place to drink with many cool bartenders, some of whom have been fixtures for many years (Paul from Origin and Ron). It has a distinct lack of $18 cocktails many people are used to in San Francisco, or the large beers / doubles cost double scam that the drinkers among us have become used to in sports stadiums (and concert halls that think they are sports stadiums).
Plus the DNA has nightly show special cocktails that match the theme of the night, many of which are pretty damn funny / political.
And not just that, but the DNA also has drinking fountains if you need to hydrate (none of that corporate bullshit “Liquid Death in cans is the only water we have” that you get at Live Nation venues).
Plus there is a pizza place on the side of it (“exit through the gift shop” setup) for a pre-show or late night munchies slice. The merch for shows is usually set up in the DNA pizza seating area, plus there is a convenient second set of bathrooms there.
I try not to express opinions on pizza or eye-talian food in SF generally (see East Coast upbringing above), but the DNA pizza is decent – especially when it is 10 PM and every restaurant in the City seems to have closed. Though it opened in 2011 as a 24/7 pizza place, note that these days it is mainly open when the club has an event (thanks Covid).
San Francisco Counterculture
One serious bonus for the DNA Lounge, which probably mainly appeals to us older folks who have been around SF for ages, is that the DNA Lounge still manages to capture a bit of the edginess and counter culture that used to be common in San Francisco. It has been around since November 1985, a long time in a city that changes constantly, though it re-opened under new management in 2001.
The DNA Lounge is one of the few independent music venues still operating in San Francisco. A lot of clubs have closed (see above), and others are controlled by the Live Nation / Ticketmaster cartel (The Warfield, The Fox, The Regency Ballroom, etc.) And it embraces that, with lots of interesting community events, and an early 2000s tech orientation even while railing against the “tech bros” who descend on SF every 10-15 years in Patagonia-vest clad droves.
So come out to some metal shows and support the DNA Lounge! You can even buy a $25/month Patreon membership, which entitles you to get into any show (a good deal for a great cause if you go out frequently).
–Hectic
