John Fogerty performs for Music with Friends on April 12, 2022. Photo courtesy of Tonda Rifkin / Music With Friends
Music With Friends is an exclusive club for music lovers, known for bringing big names like Tony Bennett, Diana Ross and Earth Wind & Fire into town.
“This may not be for everyone,” admits founder Larry Farber. Read also : Program brings school halls to life with music, dance. “It’s for everyone who wants to listen to music with fewer people, better acoustics and in a small intimate place.”
However, great music comes at a price. The club’s one-time membership fee is a fresh $ 600, plus an additional $ 600 per show. The experience is aimed at Charlotte’s elite, who have been attending these shows since the club was founded in 2007.
How it works: Music with Friends hosts three concerts a year for its 500-600 members at the Sandra Levine Theater at the University of Queens.
“You hear the greatest legends in the world with 550 to 600 of your closest friends in a way you’ve never experienced before,” Farber said.
On the other hand: “It is unfortunate that the best work of one of Charlotte’s most important cultural forces happens in private,” Ron Stodghill wrote in Charlotte Magazine in 2015, noting that the Gatsby-inspired soirees made by Farber are a little out of touch. .
Between the lines: During the pandemic, music venues closed their doors and risked closing forever. Music with friends was no exception. The club relied on federal grant money to survive. “It basically helped save us to enter next year,” Rifkin’s Director of Corporate Development and Partnership Rifkin tells Axios; explains that although the world has stopped, their costs have not.
What’s next: Music With Friends will host St. Paul and The Broken Bones on Tuesday, September 28th. And Smokey Robinson on Monday, November 28th.
