Went to see Eric McFadden last night at the Armory. Thank God we are friends of Eric's for were we not, we would have left right away.
We arrived to the Armory, quite early (8pm) and parked in the assigned parking lot. Before we went in we had a cigarette outside and some guy who was clearly a bouncer told us that we had to present id's as soon as we got inside.
He wasn't rude although not particularly friendly either, but it felt like we were being addressed by airport security before a flight.
We go inside.
To my horror, they were asking for $25 as a cover charge. There was also a VIP room price. Fortunately for us, we were on the guest list.
There were two girls at the entrance sitting at a table taking the moneys in and checking the lists, a brunette and a blond. The brunette to my right was very pleasant, helpful and smiling. The blond girl sitting next to her was clearly wasted. As we were checked in and the blond girl was writing on people's hands to indicate they had paid, she looks at me with swimming eyes and says, "did you pay?", after she had just witnessed her partner looking us up on the list. Just sloshed.
As we walked in past the coat check, the coat check girl being very polite, there were some other girls selling what looked like chocolates. I looked at them and neither of them smiled or looked back at us... more like blank stares.
We get into the hall. It was COLD in there.
The hall is more like a gymnasium. The "VIP Room" was a section of the floor to the left of the stage which had no real partition, no one checking for passes, a few folding chairs and a few beer stands manned by colorful looking hippies donning wings and silly but fun costumes. Aside from being pissed off already that anyone had to pay $25 to get into the joint while being made to feel so unwelcome, it pissed me off even more to think that anyone had to pay extra to be in that "VIP Room". What a joke.
To the back of the room was a table where many beautiful crystals were laid out. I looked at the person sitting behind the table. She didn't look at me. I said, "Hello there." and she said nothing. My girlfriend asked, "are these for sale?" and the woman replied, "Yes - everything on the table is for sale." No smile, just that blank stare. Was not inclined to buy anything from her although she really did have some beautiful pieces.
The first band, "100 Watt Mind", who started 20 minutes late, started to play and the acoustics, as one could expect in a gymnasium that was only holding some 30 people at that point, were absolutely ghastly. The drumset was a backline kit that was not well tuned and sounded like it had some super cheap cymbals like Sabian B8's or something. Because of all the reverberation from the room being so empty, if you were standing too far back from the stage, it just sounded like a cacophony of 200hz noise. I want to say that the sound was horrific and the sound engineer didn't have a clue what he/she was doing - but again, the room acoustics were so appalling that I feel like it'd be unfair to him/her to say that - but the sound was crap.
My girl and I went out for a smoke. She was wearing a backpack purse. I put my coat on her to keep her warm and as we were coming back in, someone from security, an African American female ran up to us and asked my girlfriend what she had under the jacket. I put my coat back on, revealing her small back pack purse and she asks to check its contents. I asked her, "are you serious?". She checked the contents of my girl's backpack, didn't apologize or say anything like, "sorry for the hassle" and just walked away.
Talk about feeling unwelcome. Does anyone really think someone wants to blow up the Armory? A little less enthusiasm please...
The half time show was a couple of amateurs doing some act that involved a piece of curtain hanging from the ceiling a la Cirque de Soleil. Strictly amateur. I tried not to look because the performer didn't really look like he knew what he was doing and I was more stressed by the prospect of having to witness him breaking his neck than I was interested in actually watching his act. He was wearing a wife beater and jeans.
$25 worth?
My girlfriend bought some of the chocolates and shared them with me. They were dry and tasteless. Into the garbage they went.
The guy and girl manning the beer station at the back were the highlight. Super friendly, big smiles.
Aside from too much dead air time between acts, at one point there were "dancers" on the stage, one of whom was dressed at her sluttiest who proceeded to take off her top exposing her breasts. Fun is all good and well but if I want to see titties I'll go to a strip club.
Definitely not $25 worth. I never want to go back there. It was a disgrace to the service industry, the music industry and any other industry that is supposed to be dedicated to making people feel good and welcome. read more