Things to do in Boston this week

Where to go in Boston: events, concerts and shows worth your night

Boston has more colleges than any city its size, and the nightlife to match: rock clubs where U2 and the Police played their first American shows, one of the world’s great symphony halls, a jazz bar that has run since 1947, and a theater district that gets Broadway shows before Broadway does. Below is where to go in Boston for a night out, with addresses, and what tends to be on when.

Concerts and live music in Boston: Symphony Hall to the Paradise

Symphony Hall (301 Massachusetts Avenue, bso.org), home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1900 and one of the three or four best-sounding halls anywhere, runs the BSO from September to May and the Boston Pops in May, June and December. Rock and pop play the House of Blues (15 Lansdowne Street, across from Fenway Park) and the MGM Music Hall next door, and the arena tours TD Garden. The Paradise Rock Club (967 Commonwealth Avenue, Allston) has booked touring rock and indie since 1977 in a 900-capacity room; the Sinclair in Harvard Square is its Cambridge equivalent. Wally’s Cafe (427 Massachusetts Avenue, South End) has had jazz nightly since 1947 and is still owned by the founding family.

Boston nightlife: Allston, Cambridge and the Seaport

Allston, along Commonwealth and Harvard Avenues, is the student strip: cheap bars, dive venues and the Paradise. Central Square in Cambridge has the Middle East, an alternative rock institution with three rooms, and the late bars around it. Downtown’s clubs are around the Theater District and, newer and bigger, in the Seaport. Bars close at 2 am, the T stops around 12.30 am, and Boston is small enough to walk between most of the central neighborhoods.

Theater, opera and ballet in Boston

The Theater District, around Tremont and Washington Streets, has the Boston Opera House (539 Washington Street), home of Boston Ballet and the pre-Broadway try-outs, the Wang and Shubert theaters at the Boch Center, and the Emerson Colonial. The American Repertory Theater in Harvard Square is where several recent Broadway hits started; the Huntington on Huntington Avenue is the city’s main producing theater.

Museums and galleries in Boston for an evening

The Institute of Contemporary Art (25 Harbor Shore Drive, Seaport, icaboston.org), a glass box cantilevered over the harbor, is free on Thursday evenings and runs summer concerts on its waterfront. The Museum of Fine Arts on Huntington Avenue stays open late on Thursdays and Fridays, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a Venetian palazzo with a courtyard garden, hosts Thursday-evening concerts and events. The SoWa galleries in the South End open on the first Friday of the month.

Boston festivals and events by season

• Spring: the Boston Marathon on Patriots’ Day in April, and the Boston Pops spring season from May.
• Summer: the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular on the Esplanade on July 4, free Landmarks Orchestra concerts at the Hatch Shell, the Boston Calling festival in May, and Pride in June.
• Fall: the BSO and Boston Ballet seasons opening in September and October, the Head of the Charles regatta in October, and Halloween in nearby Salem.
• Winter: Holiday Pops at Symphony Hall and Boston Ballet’s Nutcracker in December, and First Night on New Year’s Eve.

Things to do in Boston tonight and this weekend

The listings above are the live version of all this: every concert, show, club night and exhibition on in Boston tonight, tomorrow and this weekend, with times, prices and tickets, updated every hour.