The Betsey Trotwood
Feb. 17th, 2004 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shermaramahas lost its music licence but is appealing. To get around this, bands can only play if the gig is free and they write down a guest list of anyone who might conceivably come, making it not a gig but a private party with a guest list, where some of the high-spirited guests may happen to play some music.
Some things are not meant be. The Betsey Trotwoood's basement is a tiny cellar, with a three inch high stage and low arches everywhere. The biggest monitors they could physically fix to the ceiling, covered in warning tape, because there'd be no room on the floor, are too small to render half the sounds a bass makes so on some songs I couldn't hear myself and on others I couldn't hear anyone else. Oz and his kit are fundamentally designed for a bigger space and were all but physically blowing people out of the room. I think it's fair to call that the worst gig we've played in a while. I can't even tell what the promoter made of us, though it didn't seem like total condemnation.
Meanwhile the other band packed the place with asymmetric-hairdo'd ponces. They were playing a sort of post-punk, very Strokes-like guitars, very Mark E. Smith vocals. Very good technician on the bass. However, I get offended when people who are worse at drums than me get to play in a headlining band, and that weakness soured the rest of it. There were JSBX-style breakdowns intended to rest the whole thing on a strut for a while but without the drums being right, that becomes pointless.
Though I guess at most of this. I spent most of the time upstairs, listening to the music as it came through the floor, attempting to ignore the clash with the tinny dance the main bar was playing. Perhaps there are places that are not cut out to be full band venues, okay?
Some things are not meant be. The Betsey Trotwoood's basement is a tiny cellar, with a three inch high stage and low arches everywhere. The biggest monitors they could physically fix to the ceiling, covered in warning tape, because there'd be no room on the floor, are too small to render half the sounds a bass makes so on some songs I couldn't hear myself and on others I couldn't hear anyone else. Oz and his kit are fundamentally designed for a bigger space and were all but physically blowing people out of the room. I think it's fair to call that the worst gig we've played in a while. I can't even tell what the promoter made of us, though it didn't seem like total condemnation.
Meanwhile the other band packed the place with asymmetric-hairdo'd ponces. They were playing a sort of post-punk, very Strokes-like guitars, very Mark E. Smith vocals. Very good technician on the bass. However, I get offended when people who are worse at drums than me get to play in a headlining band, and that weakness soured the rest of it. There were JSBX-style breakdowns intended to rest the whole thing on a strut for a while but without the drums being right, that becomes pointless.
Though I guess at most of this. I spent most of the time upstairs, listening to the music as it came through the floor, attempting to ignore the clash with the tinny dance the main bar was playing. Perhaps there are places that are not cut out to be full band venues, okay?
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Date: 2004-02-17 12:00 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-17 08:53 pm (UTC)