Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Hip Hop, Hip Hip Hop - Please stop...

Working at the venue lets me see many different acts and allows me to see some great bands. Every night is usually a different genre of music but with each different style there are different styles of problems.

With the metal and hardcore scenes its usually mosh pits and drunks, sometimes pot smokers.

With hippy jam bands its usually people recording the music or video and lots of pot smokers.

With this emo sad bastard music its usually the women that are drunk and being noisy. (Those sad emo guys are too worried about shit to be a problem.) And of course, pot smokers.

Then you have the gangsta rappers. They get patted down at the front door for knives, guns, and anything else you could think of that could be used as a weapon. Same thing pretty much for the rappers and R & B nights too.

Out of all the nights we always have extra guys on for the hip hop and R&B nights. These nights are always a hassle.

The act always shows up at least an hour late, they get on stage and they'll play less time than they are slotted, and they always invite their homies up on stage to bust a rhyme or something.

For some reason these people who are paying way too much money to see such a short show always come back again too. Why?

You pay twenty to twenty-five bucks to see your favorite rapper perform for an hour and the guy shows up an hour late and performs for fifteen minutes. Does this really make sense?

If it does, I'll gladly invite you to my place for a party, gaurantee you all the booze you can drink, take your forty bucks and tell you the booze will be here in an hour and then give you one beer. Makes sense to me. Over charge you for a quarter of what you expected.

I tell you what, I'm into more of the metal scene and don't really like the new rap or r&b, but if a band I really liked pulled that shit on me I'd probly leave. You might think your the best as an act but there are a lot better acts no matter who you are. It doesn't matter if your Ozzy or your some little garage band from bum fuck Iowa. Your better than some but there are some better than you.

Then, on most of these nights the management of the band wants everything to be VIP. Close all the side rooms and the balcony and make them VIP, but leave the main stage area open for everyone.

Hmm, the main stage area where theres no chairs and tables. This way 250 out of the 300 people (who aren't VIP) can stand around for the next hour waiting for a show that is still driving to the venue. When they do this it sucks for everyone. The people can't sit and relax, the bartender in that area makes no money because theres only twenty or thirty VIPs and they're taking up space in a different VIP area, and the door staff is taking heat from everyone because you can't let them in to sit down or get a drink unless they're VIP.

So the act ended up going on an hour late because they wanted their fans to actually show up. Even though it was advertised to start at a certain time the fans didn't even show up till an hour later. To me that says something altogether. Granted, maybe they got a call and some big whig wasn't able to make it on time so they waited. But still, if some big whig can't make it on time then he doesn't really care anyway. He just wants to be a hassle so he gets in free.

At least I can say this. There were no guns, there were no fights, and there weren't many drunks. It was actually a really slow night but everyone was still on their toes for the unexpected. Last show like this we had we ended up having twelve cops run in to arrest three guys for picking a fight with one of our bartenders. Why? Because they thought he shorted them on their drink pour. Fuckin retarded.

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