Good live music has an energy and intimacy that can’t be captured through recordings. Thankfully, there are plenty of venues all across Maine to experience those special performances—from restored opera houses to riverfront pavilions to snowmobiling pit stops.

This former playhouse reopened as Vinegar Hill Music Theatre this year after extensive renovations, including an expanded outdoor garden. The inaugural year included shows from Broadway performer Frenchie Davis and Blues Hall of Fame inductee Joe Louis Walker.

The modestly sized room and stage, which isn’t much higher than the audience’s chairs, make for intimate musical performances. The location in Longfellow Square provides plenty of options for dinner and drinks before or after a show.

The revitalized 1894 opera house hosts more than 100 performances and events throughout the year. Along with its role as a performance hall, the historic venue serves as a pillar in the midcoast town’s art scene.

Space Gallery regularly presents unique, genre-defying musical acts in its stripped-down arts space, the stage framed by metal beams. The nonprofit helped secure its future in Portland by purchasing its Congress Street building in 2015.

The revitalized 1894 opera house hosts more than 100 performances and events throughout the year. Along with its role as a performance hall, the historic venue serves as a pillar in the midcoast town’s art scene.

The open-air amphitheater along the Penobscot River routinely attracts big names. This summer Darling ’s Waterfront Pavilion has hosted concerts from Zac Brown Band, Def Leppard, and Jimmy Buffett.

Musician Carol Noonan, who owns and operates Stone Mountain Arts with her husband, Jeff Flagg, brings in national acts to play at one of the state’s most memorable venues, a timber frame music hall in the foothills of the White Mountains.

Executive and artistic director Michael Miclon has been booking quality acts for Johnson Hall’s first-floor theater since taking over in 2013, as the organization raises funds to reopen the original, third- floor performance hall—all part of the oldest opera house in Maine.

Near the Canadian border and along a snowmobiling trail, Eureka Hall Restaurant comes alive Friday and Saturday nights with energetic shows by musicians from around the state and beyond.