Bates Recital Hall

If Bass Concert Hall remains the grand dame of UT venues, its sister venue Bates Recital Hall rightly wears the title borne to any queen’s female sibling – princess. At just under a trim 700 seats, the steep, regal room feels like a church given the three-story, 24-ton, 5,315-pipe organ rising up behind the wide stage. Opened in 1981, classical, jazz, and pop heavies of every stripe have graced the space at every turn. In the reissue to 2005 Spoon classic Gimme Fiction, producer Mike McCarthy tells of sneaking into the UT’s Butler School of Music (for which Bates acts as its Recital Hall) with group frontman Britt Daniel to record the grand piano to “The Beast and Dragon, Adored.”