Moscow’s main concert club is the place for less-than-stadium-scale foreign acts: Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, The Chemical Brothers, Gogol Bordello, Morrissey, The Tiger Lillies, Placebo, and Sonic Youth. B1 has no competition; therefore, patrons have to put up with an inconvenient location, mediocre sound, insolent security guards, long lines at the entrance, and outrageous prices for tickets and drinks at the bar. What can be done: there is a monopoly on good music.
Сover 1500–3500 rub.

This club, named after an imaginary character, is ten years old. Leningrad, 5Nizza, and Boombox gave their first concerts here. There have been performances by The Skatalites, Stereo Total, and Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra. And all this while the club’s concert hall seats a mere one hundred. In the last few years the club has slipped a bit, but still preserved what is most important: a great location, a varied menu, comfort and interesting concerts.
Сover 200–500 rub.

This is not a club but an entire «cultural center». Even after the death of its founder, Nikolai Dmitriev, it remains the most avant garde and experimental club in Moscow. Electro-acoustic interactive music and multimedia, sound installations, noise music, «Deep Throat and Dangerous Liasons», the Japanese avant garde and Scandinavian folk or Bill Drummond (The KLF) with his chorus The 17—everything that happens here is so unusual that the absence, for all intents and purposes, of a bar and kitchen, is not an issue, since that is not what you come for.
Сover 300–400 rub.

At Gogol’ you will find concerts primarily by well-known Russian groups like Billy‘s Band, The Bricks (Kirpichi), Markscheider Kunst, Hummingbird (Kolibri) and Pep-See plus the occasional touring act, students of the humanities, home-made horseradish vodka, mediocre fare, poor service, and, according to eyewitnesses, watered-down beer. It’s clear, Gogol’ ain’t what it used to be; but is still dear to Muscovites who continue to come here out of old habit. It’s just one of those things, like watching a movie wrapped in a blanket, an outdoor skating rink in winter, dancing to the music of your youth, or getting into a drunken fight with a former classmate…
Сover 200–600 rub.

The cult club Ikra can be summed up with one word, gloomy: gloomy concerts (Psychic TV, Legendary Pink Dots, Current 93, Alec Empire, Goldie), and gloomy bordello-ish decor (semi-darkness, red lights). It always seems like around the corner someone is selling heroin or having sex for money. Everything is gloomy and this gloominess is already three years old.  This is the face of a club with a unique and interesting concert program.
Сover 300–1500 rub.

One of the oldest and most authoritative but not the biggest music club in Moscow, Sixteen Tons can still gladden the heart with a good program—concerts by local and imported indie groups and great parties are tarnished only by the abundance of office workers who treat «The Tons» like their local pub. But perhaps it is just a large pub with a musical program.
Сover 300–1000 rub.