Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[Mad_Jack]

He used to play a little local club, called Spanky's, that was below an FM radio station (CFNY, which was the only Alternative radio station in the area at the time) about 5 miles from my house. Later, in the '80s, it changed its name to Stars. I was too young to get in and this particular Toronto suburb had about 600,000 fewer residents then. We had some wild bands play those two clubs. As in you wouldn't believe the names involved, that showed up in this little bump in the road back then.

There used to be a tiny little club in New London, CT called the L'n'G Club. Now, this is a tiny city, only 10 sq. miles and currently 27,000 people, and the club itself was only about 60 feet wide and 150 feet long, two-thirds of that length a bar and the rest the stage area (which was only waist-high).

And yet, back in the mid-late '90's I regularly saw huge bands like Type O Negative, Henry Rollins, and a triple bill of Prong, Clutch and Drowned performing there... The club was a decades-long landmark in the New England music scene and a common stop on most tours of this area, especially for punk and metal bands.

 

[Ryujin]

The sense I have is that there are still some smaller venues, but I live in the East Coast Megalopolis, so my sense of things might be skewed (and I haven't been following the music biz much for a while).

You're not wrong, but most of the old standards have long since gone. In Toronto we lost maybe 3/4 of them, over the years. Lee's Palace, where Clash at Demonhead played in "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" still exists, but they lost the front entrance to a restaurant.

 

[trappedslider]

You're not wrong, but most of the old standards have long since gone. In Toronto we lost maybe 3/4 of them, over the years. Lee's Palace, where Clash at Demonhead played in "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" still exists, but they lost the front entrance to a restaurant.

 

[Ryujin]

There used to be a tiny little club in New London, CT called the L'n'G Club. Now, this is a tiny city, only 10 sq. miles and currently 27,000 people, and the club itself was only about 60 feet wide and 150 feet long, two-thirds of that length a bar and the rest the stage area (which was only waist-high).

And yet, back in the mid-late '90's I regularly saw huge bands like Type O Negative, Henry Rollins, and a triple bill of Prong, Clutch and Drowned performing there... The club was a decades-long landmark in the New England music scene and a common stop on most tours of this area, especially for punk and metal bands.

The building itself hasn't changed, but the occupants have. CFNY occupied the space now housing T&T Restaurant, Nail Madness, and Dosa Corner. Spanky's had the three spaces right below that.

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[Ryujin]

The whole song's performance exists on Youtube, not just the shortened version from the movie.

 

[trappedslider]

The whole song's performance exists on Youtube, not just the shortened version from the movie.

with Brie's singing...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I don't know that's going to happen. Everything seems to be concentrated on the huge staged shows out of stadiums, these days.

Back in the day you could see up-and-comers like Duran Duran at smaller venues like The Concert Hall, in Toronto. Maybe 1000 people, including the open floor. It's still there and has been renovated. I saw Forgotten Rebels at a club called El Mocambo, in the early '80s. The Rolling Stones played there, in a "secret show" in the late '70s, and it was released as a live album. It seated 300 and that wasn't the only time that they payed there, with no prior announcement.. We had a Metric Tonne of small clubs, that had big name acts just basically show up, back then.

The biggest band I’ve ever seen at a truly small venue was BÖC at a club show…in Austin in the 1990s! It only went partially as expected.

The opening act was local thrillers, Black Pearl, followed by Houston’s Galactic Cowboys- fresh off of signing a major label record deal.

Black Pearl simply killed it. To this day, I don’t understand how they never quite broke through. Lisa Tingle (the vocalist) had serious pipes, and is still active in Austin’s music scene.

And BÖC’s show was exactly what you’d expect: all killer, no filler. Hit after hit after hit.

But Galactic Cowboys’ keyboard player had spent all of Black Pearl’s set drunkenly hitting on my friend. So when the clambered up on stage to play, we were a bit surprised. But it was his bandmates who were a bit surprised when he played off tempo and out of key their entire set. (He was fired about 2 weeks later.)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I regularly saw huge bands like Type O Negative, Henry Rollins, and a triple bill of Prong, Clutch and Drowned performing there...

(Emphasis mine.)

JEALOUS!

 

[Ryujin]

The biggest band I’ve ever seen at a truly small venue was BÖC at a club show…in Austin in the 1990s! It only went partially as expected.

The opening act was local thrillers, Black Pearl, followed by Houston’s Galactic Cowboys- fresh off of signing a major label record deal.

Black Pearl simply killed it. To this day, I don’t understand how they never quite broke through. Lisa Tingle (the vocalist) had serious pipes, and is still active in Austin’s music scene.

And BÖC’s show was exactly what you’d expect: all killer, no filler. Hit after hit after hit.

But Galactic Cowboys’ keyboard player had spent all of Black Pearl’s set drunkenly hitting on my friend. So when the clambered up on stage to play, we were a bit surprised. But it was his bandmates who were a bit surprised when he played off tempo and out of key their entire set. (He was fired about 2 weeks later.)

I was at the ElMo for both sets that Forgotten Rebels did, that night. The second set, after they'd presumably drank, pilled/smoked/snorted or whatever, was far better than the first.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The best bang for the buck show I ever saw was paying $10 to see Swervedriver opening with Machine Head, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden following (in that order).

It was magical and memorable for many reasons:

1) the price for that lineup, obviously
2) the venue (now demolished) was a converted 1950s hangar, all curved metal & concrete, so there was nowhere for the sounds to go except through humans…and it was LOUD.
3) the venue had a no stagediving/crowd surfing policy…which Eddie Vedder broke during Machine Head’s set, getting him ejected. Fortunately, many fans were able to convince security & mgmt that he was the lead singer in the next act, and ejecting him would be a bad idea.
4) There were drugs EVERYWHERE- more than any show I’ve attended before or since. It’s a good thing I didn’t have a drug test l, because even though I don’t partake, I was probably 2nd hand exposed enough to test positive.