Austin: Patty Griffin at the Continental Club

In December 2012, Patty Griffin sold out the Continental Club in Austin — two nights running. The secret she’d been keeping was right there in the show’s cheeky title.

“Patty Griffin & Her Driver” was what the marquee said. The “driver” was Griffin’s boyfriend, Robert Plant. And he was wearing a chauffeur’s cap in the pool room just behind the stage. That night, two hundred people squeezed into the pocket-size South Congress venue. They came to hear Led Zeppelin: “Black Dog,” “Going to California,” “What Is and What Should Never Be.” But they came away talking about Griffin’s solo opening set — mostly new material, played to pin-drop silence. That’s the Patty Griffin Effect.

The Continental Club has been Austin’s most beloved small venue since 1957. It opened as a supper club at 1315 South Congress Avenue. Then it became a music room in the 1970s. Since then it has hosted blues, rockabilly, soul, country, and everything in between. But its relationship with Patty Griffin is something particular. Indeed, it’s a partnership between an artist and a room made for each other.

The Room That Fits

In 2020, when live music had mostly shut down, Griffin returned to the Continental Club. Then she launched a three-night livestream residency — “Live From the Continental Club.” She played to an empty room with a live camera feed. Yet the shows drew fans all across the country. They reminded everyone what Austin already knew: when Patty Griffin sings in a small room, the walls hold something.

The Continental Club runs live music most nights. It remains one of the great small rooms in American music — and in Patty Griffin’s Austin story, it holds a particular place. She’s played stages from Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House. But the Continental Club is home.

I’ve been here ♪