Private Party

How to get in on the VIP club at a hip live-music venue

t can be expensive to join one of the city’s coolest secret clubs, but look what you get for your money: a private lounge with private dining, first dibs on concert seating, and a chance to hobnob with celebs in one of Boston’s hippest high-end live-music venues. Those are among the benefits of the little-known private club at House of Blues, the Foundation Room, whose members have their own ornate space above the hoi-polloi with its own bar, 60-seat dining room, personal concierge, and widescreen-TV viewing lounge, hidden just behind a door you never noticed on the second level of the concert hall. Sure, it costs a few thousand bucks a year, but the bragging rights? Priceless. Marcus

Shhhh! Members also can use the House of Blues Foundation Rooms in Vegas, Atlantic City, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Houston, L.A., and New Orleans

Shhhh! Members include the Dropkick Murphys.

Shhhh! There’s a balcony
that overlooks Lansdowne Street.

Shhh who knew

The very first House of Blues, which was in Cambridge, was financed by Dan Aykroyd, Aerosmith, Letterman sidekick Paul Shaffer, River Phoenix, Jim Belushi—and Harvard University. It's now owned, like pretty much every other music venue in the country, by Live Nation. You can still see the founders' handprints in the driveway of the original location on Winthrop Street in Harvard Square.