Bar shows (1 Viewer)

Any one see a pretty major act at a really small venue? I'm a huge fan of the British folk singer Frank Turner, who's currently opening for Offspring in big venues across the U.S. But this weekend Offspring was playing in a local festival, so Frank played at a small rock club in downtown Albany. My friend and I were five feet from the stage the whole show, and the banter between songs was literally a conversation with the 12 or so of us in the crowd. Other than a group that drove from NYC for the show and talked loudly through the song they didn't know, it was one of the best live music experiences of my life. Even after a group of kids tried to mug us on the walk back to the car (which I admittedly parked in a bad neighborhood), I was still left with a positive glow from the night.

I was WAY fortunate enough to see John Mayer at his old stomping grounds of Eddie's Attic in Decatur back in December of '05 (capacity of 200 people). There were 3 shows in a row and I was lucky enough to be able to get tickets to and attend each one. All shows were him on acoustic and David LaBruyere on bass and that's it. Also, for each show, he played his songs in chronological order as far as when they were written, so show #1, he played the 1st song he wrote, followed by the #4 song etc. Then night 2, he played the 2nd song he wrote followed by the 5th song he wrote etc.

To give you an idea of how small the place is, see the pic below:

I've been following this one organization in Central NJ, called NJ Proghouse ( njproghouse.com ) and while not a "bar" per se, a small venue, indeed. They used to run shows in an historical building called the Franklin Schoolhouse on Rt.27 in Edison. Barely enough room that seats maybe 70 people or so, with a little standing room in back next to the soundboard. Amazing place to see people perform. I've been to many shows there to see many bands that are probably largely unheard of: Oblivion Sun, IZZ, Anton Roolaart to name a few. For larger names, they book the Ford Theater (saw The Flower Kings there), or a theater in New Brunswick called The Crossroads (saw Riverside there.) However, recently, they've been asked (told?) not to use the Franklin Schoolhouse facility anymore. As such, the new home for the Proghouse has been changed to a cafe called Rock n Joe, a coffee shop, thus the name, in Kendall Park. Not the same vibe as the schoolhouse, but still, another small venue. Recently saw Stretch there, with Dave LaRue of Dixie Dreggs/Steve Morse fame, and it was great. To give you a sense of the venue, after the first set, Dave approached me and thanked me for coming and bringing my 7 and 10 year, as he apprecited my willingness to expose a much younger generation to his music. The kids loved the show, too, which was a huge bonus, they got autographs of the whole band (all 3, lol.)