CBGB Returns With Four-Day Festival This Summer, New Venue in the Future

CBGB, the famed rock club on the Bowery in New York City that closed in 2006, is getting a revival. According to the New York Times, several investors bought the venue's famous name and all of its assets in order to start a Lazarus project, aimed at bringing back the old venue.

The new owners are now planning a city-wide music festival that will take place this summer, eventually followed by the opening of a brand new CBGB location.

"We're never going to recreate that moment in time," said CBGB investor Tim Hayes. "We're trying to continue the idea of supporting live music, making a lot of noise and being a part of New York City. The festival is one way we can do it. Eventually the club will be another way we can do it."

The four-day festival, which begins July 5, already has several notable highlights from a free Central Park show featuring Guided by Voices, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Cloud Nothings to the Cro-Mags, Vision of Disorder and Sick of It All headlining Webster Hall.

The new owners of CBGB have stated that they aren't in it for the money and that their main goal is create a space that will continue to showcase new and undiscovered bands, just like the venue did at its old Bowery location for decades.

The club's founder Hilly Kristal died in 2007, a year after the venue closed due to pressures from the landlord and months of back pay. The founder's daughter Lisa Kristal Burgman was happy to sell the rights to CBGB when she found out Hayes and his partners' true intentions.

"It's a relief to know that it's not going to die," Ms. Burgman said. "It's going to be reborn."

Watch Bad Brains Live at CBGB in 1982