Barfly visited new venue Terminal 5 the other night to engage in one of our least favorite New York exploits: listening to live music. Folks, this is the modern age. New York social goers are not Neanderthalithic Victorian dwellers sitting in the ‘parlor’. We don’t have to pretend to enjoy it as Heathcliff and Jane Eyre pound out their repressed sexual longings on the harpsichord. We prefer our longings on display and our music produced.
Lucky for us the designers of the fancy new concert hall were so focused on lighting the omni-present balconies that they forgot one teensy-weensy detail – the acoustics. Barfly had a great time running up and down flights of stairs and jumping to their numerous bars. The stair climbing calories we burned let us justify another pint glass full of frothy $6 Budweiser. The best part – we weren’t distracted by the pesky music, or in this case the pesky dull roar of poorly amplified song lyrics. As the concert wrapped up we found ourselves tapping our foot. How funny – our counting down the minutes was almost in time to the music.
We spilled onto the street. We were exhausted by all of that listening. We needed a drink, but we were on 11th avenue. Yes, we could throw a cinder block through one of those BMW dealerships, but by the time we found the booze stash we figured the vagrants lining the street will have started a round of knife fights over the precious drink (except for those crafty bums who got right to it and started drinking the gasoline straight from the tanks).
Not to mention we’ve grown bored about drinking around classic cars.
So, we wandered, and found a friendly looking bar nestled on 11th a few blocks from our venue. We opened the door to Dixie’s Texas Tavern and instead of being greeted with jaded silence we were hit with a wall of noise. More live music. In a small bar. A youg’un pranced around on stage and sang lines from the velvet underground. The acoustics in this place were unexpectedly excellent. Our night was doomed.
At least it was a Texas tavern – there should be plenty of whisky to drown out the sound. We sat far from the stage and sipped, careful to avoid any rattlesnakes and illegal immigrants – the pitfalls of any good fake Texas watering hole. We tried to shake the memories of Terminal 5. Unfortunately Dixie's didn’t offer balconies to explore. Just cheap drinks, a young crowd, some pretty girls playing beer pong and the music.
We think that we spied the singer’s parents in the first row. He only sang covers. We did our best not to listen. To scoff at the fact that he was clearly from long island. We half-rolled our eyes as he whipped his long hair around and when he hit the high notes. But, our disdain was off tempo. In this small bar on 11th avenue, down the block from the fancy new venue with all the pretty levels, we found something truly shocking: music that rocked.
He took a break, the radio came on, and we longed for another song. He walked back by us and caught our eye. “Whatch’d ya think?” he asked.
“Well, we aren’t usually into this sort of. . .”
We continued chatting and noticed his lip ring, his shaggy hair, and his ripped jeans. He joked that he was only twenty as he sipped his pint of beer. Could he be the one that makes this cultural anomaly interesting? “You know. You’re actually really good. We just saw a concert at Terminal 5. Its gonna be you up there one day.”
He seemed genuinely flattered. “Awesome, thanks. That’s super encouraging. I hope that you’ll be the first one in line if I play that place.”
We thought of the crowds, the expensive beer and the ticket price as he was called back to the stage. ”See you? At Terminal 5? Nah. Live music sucks. Get back up there, we can’t wait for your next song.”
Hey I had never heard about this group, but it sounds great. A friend of mine really like this group and she went to this concert, she says that was truly awesome.
Posted by: Kamagra Gel | November 12, 2010 at 01:59 PM