Asheville: The land of Moogs, microbrews and mountain music
How did Asheville become Appalachia’s arty oasis? Its rise was equal parts nature and nurture.
This region has been gorgeous for eons, but the world beyond the mountains didn’t really wake up to that until the railroad arrived. Asheville quickly transformed into a resort destination, while preserving and promoting its longstanding Appalachian craft traditions.
That all made the area irresistible to back-to-the-landers a century later. And when downtown and local industries slipped into an all-too-common decline, hippies, artists, craftspeople, and musicians came down from the hills and rebuilt parts of the city in their patchwork image.
This is where microbrews started flowing long before they invaded the grocery beer aisle. This is also where you can jump into an acoustic jam in the heart of downtown, on an instrument hand-carved by your neighbor. These days, between the buskers, a synthesizer museum, and weekly drum circles, this North Carolina town hums in a brand-new way.
And if Asheville has been on your “I should check that place out” list for a while, it’d be super-cool of you to cross it off now, while the city remains determined to bounce back from Hurricane Helene’s devastating floods.
Let’s start our tour with one of Asheville’s late, great musical tinkerers.
The Moogseum
Bob Moog didn’t play a note on “Cars,” “Flash Light,” or “I Feel Love.” But Gary Numan’s icy synth riff, Bernie Worrell’s rubbery bass line, and Giorgio Moroder’s relentless disco pulse wouldn’t be the same without him.
Working with composer Herb Deutsch, Moog helped transform synthesizers from room-sized laboratory machines into practical, musician-friendly instruments controlled by keyboards, knobs, and patch cables.
After selling his company, Moog moved to North Carolina in 1978 and spent the final decades of his life in Asheville, teaching college courses, designing new instruments, and eventually reclaiming the Moog Music name. The downtown Moogseum, opened by the nonprofit Bob Moog Foundation in 2019, lets visitors plug into his unique legacy.
And we mean "plug into” quite literally. At the Moogseum, you can patch together sounds on a modular-synth interface, wave your hands around a theremin, play an assortment of synthesizers, explore Moog’s recreated workbench, and step inside an immersive dome that shows how electricity becomes sound. Rare photographs, prototype modules, and more than 1,000 archival items tell Moog’s story between the bleeps and bloops.
The Grey Eagle
There’s a photo of Asheville-raised country superstar Luke Combs, years before he was selling out NFL stadiums, standing outside the Grey Eagle with his arms outstretched as if to say, “I’ve made it.”
That’s how large this 550-capacity hall looms in the hearts of country, roots, and Americana performers across the Carolinas—and well beyond.
The Grey Eagle first opened in Black Mountain in 1994, inside the former garage and paint room of a Chevrolet dealership. Five years later, it moved 12 miles down the road to its current home beside the French Broad River in Asheville’s River Arts District.
Since then, the city’s longest-running all-ages venue has welcomed more than 10,000 bands and artists, including Combs, Tyler Childers, Noah Kahan, Jason Isbell, and The Avett Brothers, who all passed through before graduating to much larger stages.
Throw in a patio, an in-house taqueria, and a calendar that keeps reaching beyond roots music, and the Grey Eagle remains one of Asheville’s best places to hear what’s next.
Highland Brewing
Before Asheville became Beer City USA, Oscar Wong was in a downtown basement with a dream and some old dairy equipment.
The retired engineer and homebrewer opened Highland beneath Barley’s Taproom in 1994, making it Asheville’s first brewery since Prohibition. He retrofitted old Sealtest tanks and helped ignite the craft-beer boom that eventually put the city on every hop-lover’s map.
In 2006, Highland left the basement for a 40-acre former movie-studio complex in East Asheville. Today, the family-owned brewery is led by Wong’s daughter, Leah Wong Ashburn, and the property feels like a neighborhood festival that never leaves, with indoor and outdoor stages, food trucks, rooftop mountain views, sand volleyball courts, and an 18-hole disc-golf course.
But if you’re like us, you’re mostly here for the beer and the bands. During the warmer months, the Meadow hosts regional favorites and touring acts spanning bluegrass, soul, folk, country, R&B, and more. Most shows are free and all-ages, with blankets and lawn chairs welcome.
Our advice? Grab a Gaelic Ale, find a good patch of grass, and settle in. Few places pack as much of what makes Asheville great into one stop: a pioneering local brew, live music in the meadow, and the Blue Ridge Mountains as your backdrop.
The Orange Peel
How many great music clubs can claim past lives as a roller rink, a bowling alley, an auto-parts warehouse, and the local headquarters for the U.S. census? Just one, we’re pretty sure.
But this building’s most important chapter began in the 1970s, when the original Orange Peel became a pillar of Asheville’s Black music community. The Commodores, The Bar-Kays, and The Chi-Lites performed on its carpeted, three-tiered stage, while DJs from Black-owned WBMU-FM filled the room with funk and disco between shows. A permanent exhibit inside today’s club preserves that history.
After the building sat empty for years, the Orange Peel was reborn as a music venue in 2002—and quickly became one of the most respected rooms in the country. Rolling Stone named it one of America’s five best rock clubs in 2008, and the 1,100-capacity venue has since hosted Bob Dylan, the Beastie Boys, Lauryn Hill, Post Malone, and a nine-show Smashing Pumpkins residency. Not bad for an old skating rink.
Now the Orange Peel is helping write another chapter across town. Hellbender, its new three-acre outdoor venue beside the Swannanoa River, rises on the former site of a brewery lost after Hurricane Helene. The inaugural season begins this summer, including an August 1 bill featuring Rhiannon Giddens, Mavis Staples, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Hurray for the Riff Raff—a promising start for a stage built to help bring music and new life back to a flood-damaged industrial corridor.
LaZoom Fender Bender Beer + Bands Tour
What if the guitar solo in “Free Bird” was played on trombone? If you think that sounds wrong, you haven’t heard it played inside a purple bus as it rolls mid-day between Asheville’s best breweries.
For nearly 20 years, the LaZoom company has turned sightseeing into rolling theater, using costumed performers, comedy sketches, ghost stories, and audience participation to introduce visitors to Asheville. But we’re boarding for Fender Bender, the tour LaZoom proudly calls its “most unsophisticated” brewery experience.
Over three hours, a live local band rides along as the bus makes stops at Highland Brewing, New Belgium, and the Wedge. The rotating lineup includes Pleasure Chest, a horn-powered blues, soul, and rock ’n’ roll outfit whose bio promises the humor of Bo Diddley and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins alongside swampy grit. Then there’s “cosmic Appalachian soul” artist Aaron “Woody” Wood, a.k.a. the legend that decided “Free Bird” needed a brass solo.
Whoever hops on board, we can’t think of a better way to take in the sights, sounds, and suds of Asheville.
More in Asheville
Fleetwood’s
Rock ’n’ roll chapel, vintage shop, bar, and venue.
Cúrate
Celebrated Spanish tapas in a lively downtown dining room.
Shindig on the Green
Free summer bluegrass, old-time music, clogging, and storytelling.
Asheville Pinball Museum
Unlimited play on dozens of vintage pinball machines.
Folk Art Center
Regional crafts, galleries, demonstrations, and Blue Ridge traditions.
Harvest Records
West Asheville vinyl hub with deep local-scene roots.
Biltmore Estate
America’s grandest home, gardens, winery, and mountain history.
Jack of the Wood
Downtown pub hosting bluegrass jams and Irish sessions.
Wicked Weed Funkatorium
Sour beers, DJs, comedy, and live music events.
Pritchard Park Drum Circle
Friday-night rhythms, dancers, spectators, and spontaneous participation.
Explore Asheville
Official trip-planning hub for events, lodging, and attractions.
