Laura R.
Yelp
Went here just a couple days ago, to see the Front Bottoms. The parking lot was packed, and I literally got the last open space. It was a Saturday night, though, so I'm sure that had something to do with it. There are a lot of little bars, and the Clermont is down the street, so I'm sure it wouldn't have been too difficult to find parking nearby.
I got here about 8.35, with the promise of the show starting promptly at 8.30. This proved an issue because of two reasons. One was that there was an unmoving line, and secondly, that they started the show at 8.50, and the line was still unmoving. It didn't start to move until 9.10, and I didn't get inside until 9 30. So I saw two songs from the opening act, which was just poor planning on the management's end. One of the bouncers told me that capacity caps off at about 150, and that after pre-sales, there were only 40 walk-in tickets left. Considering the line stretched outside the building, and around to the front, it's safe to say it was either a sold out show, or close enough.
Now onto something I think is very important to note about venues: the people. This was an all ages show, where the majority of the people were under 21... and they acted like it. If you want to get close to the singer, forget about watching the band in peace. I was constantly rammed, stepped on, shoved, and climbed on. I don't know what it is about people who are 5'8" and 280 pounds who want to use a 5'3", 118 pound girl as a spring board. But it happens more often than not. I stayed in the pit most of the show, until I was bum rushed, which made me stagger to the floor, trapped under people. At least there were a handful of people who immediately reacted by keeping a bubble around me, until they grabbed me up by the waist. At that point, someone stepped on my ankle, injuring me enough that I moved away.
Pretty much every show I've been to had bouncers who were at the front, grabbing people who were crowd surfing so they couldn't stay afloat 10 minutes straight, kicking people in the face and dropping their dead weight on small people like me. There appeared to be no bouncer here to facilitate the safe passage of said crowd surfers. Several times, I saw people go down because they couldn't lift a person, and I also saw people kicked in the mouth and cheek and back of the head. Honestly, it's plain rude to insist on being kept afloat by the crowd for 10 minutes at a time. When people started using me as a springboard, that's when I stopped attempting to help them stay afloat, and finally moved away from the deluge of people attempting to squish me.
Despite the young crowd, the venue had a small stage that was very intimate, which I actually loved. The sound system was booming and fairly evenly distributed between the vocals and instruments, which is also awesome. I did enjoy being there, and it reminded me of when I used to go to shows as a youth. Maybe it's me getting older, but in Augusta I went to sold out shows with a 300 capacity, and the people seemed more considerate and less willing to punch you in the face.