NEVER. AGAIN.
I've been here a couple times and haven't ever really been a fan, but my most recent visit will most certainly be my last. Why? Because I was roofied here, and the fact that I had multiple hours of my life robbed from me understandably sours my opinion of the place.
I unwittingly ended up here because I had bought tickets to see New Found Glory at Revolution Live. Unbeknownst to me, when the ticket says "Revolution Live Outdoors" - they mean America's Backyard. Not knowing this, my friend and I rushed in to Revolution to snag some spots by the balcony... only to realize not many people were camping out, which was strange. Then we saw people heading for the doors. Uh oh. We walked outside, and to our dismay, saw the massive crowd huddled together in what I knew would become one gigantic mosh pit.
My friend and I resolved that we were NOT going to be stuck down there, and realized our only opportunity to see the show in relative comfort was to sit in the VIP area of America's Backyard, on their balcony. At $125 a bottle (and a maximum of two people, if you wanted to bring a third person, that meant you needed to get 2 bottles), I was peeved... but whatever, I wanted to actually SEE the show and make it out alive. So I coughed up my credit card and ID, and we sat at our table.
It started off fine... plenty of people had the same idea as us, but the VIP area wasn't overwhelmingly crowded, unlike downstairs. When it came time for the show to start, we brought our bottle and cups over to the edge of the balcony to watch, only to have the waitress tell us we couldn't keep our drinks on that ledge. Okay, so we put them back on the table. And therein lies my mistake... because I had a false sense of security that my drink wouldn't be touched in this area. I was wrong.
Although I only remember drinking two glasses of champagne, I apparently was wasted. I say apparently because I remember NOTHING after the first song the band played. At that point, I didn't even feel tipsy, I recall singing along and enjoying the music. But it was like being put under anesthesia: one minute, I'm listening to the band play their first song, and the next, I'm waking up in bed the next day with a bruise on my forehead, along with a cut and dried blood, and absolutely no recollection of how I got there.
I realized I didn't have my credit card in my wallet, and asked my friend if she had signed for me, since I didn't remember signing anything. She told me she had, and that the waitress had been really pushy, but that she couldn't remember if the card was given back to me. I ended up calling Chase and canceling it, rather than going back to the bar to retrieve it. Once on the phone with them, I realized the bar charged me about $100 more than they should have.
I asked my friend about what happened since I couldn't remember anything, and as far as she knew, I was just really, really drunk, so she drove me home in my car, leaving hers in the garage downtown. It wasn't until later, when I was telling one of my friends who is a firefighter about what happened, that it was brought to my attention that what I experienced most likely wasn't from alcohol. He told me that it sounded like I had been drugged... and upon recounting my experience to others, several friends who have also unfortunately been roofied before agreed with that assessment. I told my boss the next day, and he freaked out, because a month prior to this happening to me, one of his friends had been drugged at the very same place, and had been raped.
I've been very, very drunk before, and have NEVER experienced any kind of memory loss like I did after visiting this place. I will say that I'm really lucky. I am very fortunate to have had a great friend who took care of me, and didn't leave me to fend for myself. I don't want to think about what would have happened had she not done so.
Is it entirely fair of me to bash America's Backyard when it was almost certainly a patron who did this to me? You know what, I don't care. I already didn't like this place before, but you can bet I will never be back. read more