Narcoleptic Squirrel

that I HATE THE QUEST!
The layout sucks. The sightlines are terrible, and unless you are in the front layer of people, you can gorget actually seeing anything.
Apparently whoever bought the sound system forgot what size the space was. I don’t mind loud. Heck, I like loud. But, I dislike the sound sytem working against the acoustics of the building to provide a distorted mess.
The incompetent staff. Every time we have been there, you ask them a simple question, and no one seems to know anything that is going on. Someone beats on a “security guard” or “bouncer” and why would they kick them out? After all everyone loves a good drunken menace.
I could go on and on. However, when I heard that Ministry was going to be there with Thrill Kill Kult I apparently went temporarily insane. I had never seen Ministry. I figured, how bad could The Quest be? It would be worth it to see MINISTRY. Just thinking about Ministry got me pumped. However, the moment we walked in to the club, I remembered. The bands were fine. The sound system sucked. There were several belligerent drunks causing problems. One was beating on the security guard as he was being pulled out. As his girlfriend was trying to help calm him down, he punched her in the chest. She moved away from his sorry ass. We thought he was gone. But, lucky for everyone, he was let back in. I felt so safe. The skanky bathroom was delightful as well. Some of the stalls were out of order, many didn’t close/lock, one of the sinks didn’t work, the hand dryer was less effective than shaking my hands out. If they could get a decent sound system, staff, and DJ, it would be a decent dance club. However, as a concert venue, it bites the big one.
Aside from that, Misitry was good. I got to hear NWO live, which was cool. However, the venue sucked to the point, that I will never go back. The possible exceptions being Trent Reznor or Billy Corgan. Again, I said possible exceptions. Skinny Puppy is coming, and I would love to see them, all newly reunited and all, but it is not worth dealing with the Quest. In fact on the way out, I was proclaiming my disgust, and some guy asked me why I hated the quest so much. I started rattling of a list of reasons, and he asked me if I was from the cities. I said that I live here now. He asked me to give him the name of a better venue. I said First Ave. He immediately agreed.
seriously, every show I have seen there has been awesome. Patti Smith, Blur, Garbage…I could go on. The space provides plenty of viewing options. Coat check is cheap, which is necessary with the winter in these parts, the drinks are strong, the sound system actually makes the music intelligible, if not enjoyable. While the bathrooms are not pristine, at least they function. It has a generally rocking’ vibe. Not to mention the staff. They stop the shit before it starts. I have seen people taken right down, and their asses out the minute they think of starting some shit. In short, the ave rocks.
Oh, and to add insult to injury, the Ministry show was produced by Clear Channel. What was delightful about this was the way that this wasn’t mentioned, until we got our tix, and it was printed on the front. Nice. At least half of our ticket fee was Twix money. So, CC got a little less from us directly. And, since we waited until the show was over to go elsewhere for food and drink, the Quest got as little from us as possible as well.
Gah.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 11th, 2004 at 10:22 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.