Rock the Block: The Story of the Cactus Club

The Cactus Club was always just a story I heard from folks in San Jose. It always started off with “It was the place to go see live music…” or “If only you were around to catch it…” Although the Cactus Club had already been shut down for about 5 years when I came to San Jose, it’s character was still alive in every music lover here in San Jose that I met.

Although the doors didn’t open until 6:30pm, we had a line of more than a hundred folks ready to catch the world premiere of Rock the Block a few minutes before. In the end we had two sold out shows with every seat taken and people sitting on the sidelines to catch a documentary that summed up one of the best moments of the San Jose music scene.

With a theatre packed with folks who were part of the Cactus Club, there was laughter as comments were made on the food served there, the bar and the amazing restrooms (sarcastic tone) they provided for the attendees. Although there were many positive things about the Cactus Club, the atmosphere changed once the documentary started to talk about the demise of their favorite venue and the change of South First Street. And in the words of one of our panelists and co-owner of the Cactus Club, Stikmon, “All good things must come to an end, so good things could start again.”

Yes, the Cactus Club did end, but there are a still a bunch of folks who are keeping the music scene alive in San Jose. And with Left Coast Live this week, they are just one of many examples of a group of people who are out there promoting the vibrant SJ music scene, like the Cactus Club once did.

Here are photos from the night.

-Amalia Renteria

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 at 6:05 pm and is filed under Amalia, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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