I want to give a shout out to the Somewhere Else Tavern in Greensboro, NC.
My two kids had a gig there on Friday night. It's about 2 hours away and it was rainy, cold and nasty. Not good dad/roadie weather.
The place is pretty small, nothing to look at and is tucked away in an alley and hidden really well from the road.
This place was recommended by my youngest son's drum instructor as he's played there many times with his band.
They have a great reputation for booking hard rock/heavy metal bands, but they are supposedly good with younger bands.
Man, what great people they have there, and for a "dive bar", they bring in some unexpected technology.
A good sized stage with an adequate sized drum riser and 2 cabinet risers off to the sides.
A decent PA setup, a really pleasant sound man and good stage lighting and effects.
They also deploy 10 video cameras (all seem to have different type effects or lenses setup) that point to the stage from a variety of angles.
The manager of the club sits at a video station adjacent to the sound board and he selects camera shots live to produce video for every band.
He never stops and puts some effort into every song. This is probably harder than it looks not knowing the song structures of the originals.
After you load out, he hands you a DVD and an audio CD of your band's performance.
Handing fledgling bands a DVD of their performance is a generous unertaking, and invaluable to these kids.
They get to see their performance from many different angles, with sound board quality audio - stuff they don't get from Dad or Mom.
Plus, Dad finally gets to put down the camera and enjoy the show. Geting back home at 4AM wasn't fun, but we listened to the show on the way home and I've been watching the video ever since.
Anyway - goodonya Somewhere Else Tavern. Thanks!
