Watch All Time Low play a show in the Rave's famed (and 'haunted') empty pool in Milwaukee

A select group of bands and artists who have played the Rave have been allowed to sign the Milwaukee venue's famed empty pool over the years.

But on Sunday, one band actually got to play in the pool.

This weekend has been a dream come true 🖤💫Thank you to every single one of you who joined us for this unforgettable celebration of 20 years of All Time Low! #ATLForever

Posted by The Rave / Eagles Club on Sunday, July 28, 2024

Pop-punk band All Time Low is on the road celebrating its 20-year career; the tour brought the band to the Rave this past weekend. It's one of the band's favorite tour stops — the band has played there 22 times since 2006.

Three of those times were this past Saturday and Sunday. All Time Low is popular enough to play the venue's 3,500-person-capacity Eagles Ballroom. But on Saturday, the band played the 1,800-person-capacity Rave Hall, and a second show for an even smaller crowd at the Rave Bar.

Then Sunday afternoon, All Time Low played for its smallest crowd in Milwaukee this weekend, from inside the building's empty 75-by-50-foot pool, with a handful of fans lining the railing all around them.

The acoustics have to be rough in that setting, so the band smartly opted for a stripped-down set, performing eight songs, including some of All Time Low's biggest hits, includng "Monsters" and "Dear Maria Count Me In," according to setlist.fm .

The pool was part of the building when it opened in 1927 as the Milwaukee chapter of the Fraternal Order of Eagles. The building's main venue, what is now the Eagles Ballroom — initially called George Devine's Million Dollar Ballroom — hosted bands beginning in 1934. Among the shows it's hosted in its history were the first stop of the Buddy Holly-led "Winter Dance Party" tour in 1959 — the tour that was cut short when Holly and tourmates Ritchie Valen and "The Big Bopper" J.P. Richardson were all killed in a plane crash a few weeks later in Iowa. The Dave Clark Five also had a famed show there in 1964.

The venue became The Rave in 1991, and its empty pool developed a reputation in music circles. Thirty Seconds To Mars' frontman and Oscar-winning actor Jared Leto, Steve Aoki, The 1975, Sum 41 and T-Pain are some of the acts who have been allowed to autograph and draw on the pool walls. Mac Miller and Ariana Grande once posed for a picture kissing in the pool, and Miller signed a message that became more eerie after his death in 2018: "I am Mac Miller. I once lived now I am dead, my soul remains here … "

That message and the pool inspired Against Me! frontwoman Laura Jane Grace's 2021 single "The Swimming Pool Song." Grace talked about the Rave and the pool with pop star Kesha, who also frequently plays the Rave, on the latter's podcast that same year.

The pool also is central to the venue's allegedly haunted reputation, which even got a mention on an episode of Donald Glover's Emmy-winning FX series "Atlanta."

Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com . Follow him on X at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS .

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Watch All Time Low play a show in the Rave's famed (and 'haunted') empty pool in Milwaukee