Dancing on the Bar

Friday, 20 January 2006
BenWahBob has been itching for some time now to score some of the premium gigs around town. For whatever reason, we are generally ignored in these circles...despite having been a staple of the St. Louis club scene for over 10 years. It can be frustrating to see some bands who are either no better than, or sometimes not as good as, we are, who are regulars at these high-profile high-paying clubs. This is not a criticism of any other bands who have made it in those doors, it’s just an observation of the way things are. Occasionally, though, we have the opportunity to slip through a crack in the proverbial wall that seems to separate us “rock” bands from the “show” bands. This weekend was one of those occasions. The agency that books some of the BWB gigs slipped us into the Phoenix Super Bar in South St. Louis County. It was a Friday night, but what the heck.

I had to wait for Dawna to get off work at 18:00, come to my house to change, and then head to SoCoMo (that’s “South County, Missouri” - for those of you in Rio Linda). Accordingly, I wasn’t there until about 20:30, and we were scheduled to start at 21:00. Just as we were pulling out of the Arby’s across Lemay Ferry Road from the club, both mine and Dawna’s cell phones began to ring. Carlos and his wife Dawn were trying to call us both to find out where we were. We hurried over to the club - there’s no direct route from across the street thanks to the wonderful infrastructure engineers in this town - and I quickly loaded in my equipment as Dawna sat in the van and ate her sammich (“I got that kinda cash!”). After I went in, the stage door was closed, and she was consequently locked out...in the back parking lot...in the cold rain that had just started. She called Dawn, who went over and let her in. I never did get to eat my sammich. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate Friday night gigs?

We ran through a quick sound check and had a few minutes to spare, then started promptly at 21:00. This was the first time I had been in the place, and I must say it is a pretty nice club. It is a nice layout, it has a nice house system and light show, it’s big, and it’s filled with beautiful people. All of that notwithstanding, I didn’t care much for the stage. There is a wall jutting out from stage right that cuts right into the middle of that side of the stage. Behind it is a nice green room/dressing room area with a door right onto the stage, which is a nice touch. Unfortunately, this didn’t help the sound on the stage. If I stood directly in front of my amp, I could hear it just fine. If I walked a couple of steps in any direction, my sound just evaporated. Carlos apparently had trouble finding a good tone as well. My microphone was a good 12 feet away, which also had me almost completely separated from my amp by the aforementioned wall. The PA mains were flown from the ceiling...right over the front corners of the stage...right were my mic was placed. When standing at the mic, I had about 2-3” clearance from the top of my head to the bottom of the lowest cabinet. Needles to say, I did a rather thorough inspection of the suspension system.

Dale had put together three one-hour sets from what are usually four 45-minute sets. He took out all of the “harder” stuff like Sabbath, Rush, and Zeppelin in an effort to placate the anticipated dance crowd. We did have a fair amount of dancers most of the night, but not what I had come to expect from everything I had heard about this place. I think we may have neglected to take fully into account the cartographical placement of this facility. It is South County, after all. We seemed to get a pretty good response from just about everything we played, though. We got quite a few compliments from the patrons, and the bar staff seemed to really enjoy us. History has shown that this means we will probably never play there again (Helen Fitzgerald’s come quickly to mind).

Another interesting note about the place is the encouragement of dancing on the bar. They apparently set aside times to let daring young women up onto the bar to dance, with the promise of free shots for those who do. I pointed this out to Carlos when we had just finished the first set, and we both agreed that this was not a bad thing. At the end of the second set, I pointed to the bar again to draw Carlos’ attention to the fact that it was now his wife and my girlfriend up there grinding on each other. We agreed again that this still was not a bad thing (yah, I know, I’m a pig, so what). They seemed to attract a rather significant and boisterous crowd. The barmaids must have agreed that this was not a bad thing, too, as Dawn and Dawna were both offered two shots each for their efforts.

So there we were...a couple of long-hairs in a rock band watching our women dancing on a bar in front of an ogling and appreciative crowd, then going home with us to the dismay of others. How decadent is that? “Ahhh, Stimpy, this is the life!” I should be ashamed...
But, I’m not...

We ended the night promptly at 01:00 as requested. The bar doesn’t play around with that pansy asking of people to please leave. When the bar is closed, the people must leave. It is just that simple. The place cleared out rather quickly. Some drunken idiot did apparently succeed in putting his head through someone else’s car window in the parking lot. By the time we had begun moving stuff out the door, the parking lot was swarming with about a dozen police cars, a fire truck (?), and an ambulance. Must have been a slow night in the Lemay area.

On the way home, we had to make a bladder relief stop in Fairview Heights. I think my van doesn’t ride as smooth as it once did. The drive was an unusually quiet one. I normally have some progressive rock CD blaring through my speakers to help keep me awake for the drive. However, since she had to work Saturday, Dawna wanted to sleep during the drive home. I really didn’t mind the quiet either. Plus, I had gotten a pretty good prog fix listening to the second Ice Age CD Liberation on the drive to the club.