acheron
crowds outside the Acheron on its final night (via @bbarbaruolo)

The Acheron said goodbye

On Saturday night (7/9), Brooklyn punk/metal venue The Acheron hosted two final shows. The first was with Sauron, Nuke, Wilt and Chain, and then things were shut down for good with Magrudergrind, Trenchgrinder, UNIFORM, Pox and Filth Hound. The place was of course packed and things got seriously crazy as punks and metalheads mourned what had been a stalwart venue since its opening. The Acheron’s stated goal was to not turn anyone away that night, and Bedford + Bowery had a photographer on hand, who reported:

Photographer Nick McManus braved the madness on Saturday night with his Polaroid camera, and succeeded in capturing the venue’s final hours, which bled well into Sunday morning. In addition to Pox, Filth Hound, and Uniform, [Acheron owner Bill] Dozer’s own band, Trenchgrinder, played– an underground death metal/crust outfit recently dubbed one of“Brooklyn’s fiercest metal bands.” According to McManus, the place was packed at 3am, when Magrudergrind, a Brooklyn grindcore crew by way of D.C., took the stage for the last set. The band recently reemerged from a six-year hiatus with a well-received album, II, and this happened to be their only U.S. stop scheduled for their tour thus far. “The partiers pictured stayed well past 5 am as they talked memories with Bill,” McManus told us.

The venue went out with the kind of sweaty drunkenness we’ve come to expect from the best Acheron shows, and Magrudergrind bid the venue farewell from the stage, thanking it for contributing to the punk/metal community.

We reached out to Acheron owner/Trenchgrinder member Bill Dozer, and he tells us the following:

I’m not really one for “last words” or such things. Typically rather clumsy with those pesky things. I guess all I would want to say is thank you. Thank you to the people who came to shows, even just once. Thanks to the bands that played there, especially those that became such good friends and created such a killer scene in our little corner of the world. Thanks to everyone who helped make those shows happen. And of course by that I mean the promoters and tour managers and so forth, but mostly I mean the staff we were so lucky to have. These people are my family, and I forever owe them a debt of gratitude. These past couple weeks have been really special. But they wouldn’t have been nearly so much, if it weren’t for the years before them and the hard work that so many people had put in.

I guess all I can say besides that, is now its your turn. Go start your own space. New York always needs more.

Indeed it does. Acheron is another drag of a loss for Brooklyn music venues. RIP Acheron.

Check out more instagrams from that final night:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BHsaF2wjBVr/

And here’s a gallery of pictures from the very recent Title Fight show: