The Grad Club
The Grad Club was housed in a red-brick Victorian duplex on Queen’s campus, which is already funny.
Because from the outside it looked less like a live music venue and more like the sort of place where a retired professor might keep seventeen clocks and a parrot that swears in French.
You looked at it and thought: surely people just quietly drink tea in there.
But no.
Kingston, as a city, has always understood that the best things happen in buildings that appear to be doing something else.
Inside, it revealed itself as a labyrinth of cozy nooks, differentiated rooms, and corners seemingly designed for equal parts deep conversation and mildly life-altering live music.
A pub, a restaurant, a cultural hub, and somehow also the kind of place where a person with a tambourine and suspicious levels of confidence might suddenly become the emotional centre of your evening.
A miracle of zoning.
Student-run, non-profit, deeply rooted in Queen’s and the Kingston community, The Grad Club had long been known for it’s inclusive, laid-back spirit. Everyone equal, everyone welcome, everyone close enough to see the expression on the drummer’s face when the song suddenly took off in a direction not previously agreed upon.
The concerts there never had the sterile feeling of a giant arena where you need binoculars just to confirm the band still exists. At The Grad Club, the music was right there with you.
These were house-party shows.
The kind where someone was always standing too close to a speaker, somebody else was balancing a craft beer on an impossible surface, and someone’s friend sat cross-legged on the floor near the stage while everyone collectively decided this was perfectly normal. In the corner, a person nodded so intensely they may have actually been levitating, while near the front someone danced in a way that suggested either profound musical enlightenment or a minor back spasm.
Sometimes both.
This was all part of the ecosystem.
That’s what made The Grad Club so beloved: none of this felt strange. In fact, if you walked in and didn’t encounter at least one person in a scarf discussing either experimental jazz or municipal politics, you’d probably assume you’d wandered into the wrong building.
Everyone belonged here.
This collection captures that atmosphere beautifully, with Flying V Productions posters appearing throughout like breadcrumbs left by some benevolent music goblin.
These posters preserve the spirit of the room itself: the warm beer-glow, the creaky floors, the impossible conversations, the wonderful oddballs orbiting the stage like friendly moons.
Some of these paper relics feel less like advertisements and more like notes slipped under your door by an intriguing stranger:
Come tonight. There will be guitars. Somebody named Trevor will say something unforgettable.
Now, with the venue’s doors closed as of April 2026, these pieces feel even more like evidence… proof that in the middle of campus, inside an old brick house that looked far too respectable for what it was getting up to, some of Kingston’s best nights loudly unfolded, and then politely staggered outside, blinking into the Barrie Street night air.
Artists appearing in this poster collection: The Acorn, Amelia Curran, Apostle of Hustle, Baby Eagle, Barry Mirochnick, Bent Ivy, Besnard Lakes, Boag and The Braveyard Whips, Bruce Springsteen (tribute), Buck 65, Buck Jones, Cadence Weapon, Cap’t Footbags, Carolyn Mark, CA Smith (formerly Mayor McCa), Christine Fellows, Cities Turn to Sand, Cuff the Duke, The Darcys, DJ Benjamin Nelson, DJ Bolt, DJ Haircut, DJ Grenadier, DJ LK, DJ Man Chyna, DJ Sealegs, DJ Seditious, Dustin Bentall, Elliott Brood, False Face, Ford Pier, FunkyFrenz, The Gertrudes, Greg Smith, Hooded Fang, The Hoover Jam, The Huaraches, Jill Barber, Jim Bryson, Josh Ritter, Kirby, Kyra and Tully, Lederhosen Lucil, Linda Lawrence, Lindi Ortega, Live Country Music, Louise Burns, Magic Jordan, Malajube, Martin Tielli, Matthew Barber, Midnight Magic Rodeo Show, Northcote, Odd Years, Old Man Luedecke, Patrick Lawton, Pat Temple, PS I Love You, Rough Mix, The Sadies, Skydiggers, Some Guy, Spencer Evans, Steve Piticco, Tim Sheffield, The Thuggees, The Wilderness of Manitoba, Yukon Blonde, Young Rival, and Zeus.
If one of the names in this collection has awakened your inner music obsessive, the tags at the bottom of the page will guide you toward more on some of the bands that once rattled these old floors and sent people politely staggering out onto Barrie Street. Consider them less “site navigation” and more breadcrumbs left by the benevolent music goblin.
You’ll also spot a few bonus Grad Club posters that wandered off and made themselves comfortable over in our Sarah Harmer and Holiday Rock collections.
