Playing shows in gated communities.

[theambulancereview]

Tonight my band played a battle of the bands three counties away from where we live.

I know that's a very High School sounding statement, however there are not a lot of places in our town specifically to play for all ages/cheap/punk shows.

Anyways, a month or so ago we get asked to play this show, later finding out its a battle of the bands in this really huge, HUGE (cannot stress how HUGE this place was) gated communities community center. We get lost trying to find it inside the gates of the community. We finally find it after 25 minutes of cruising around the place then got unloaded.

We ended up placing third, with a pretty decent cash prize, which was cool considering we played second and didn't move a ton of merch.

Every show we play feels better than the last, and it was extremely cool to get such a good reaction from people outside of our town. But it's still bugging me out that we played a show in a gated community. Not punk. Whatever. (However, it is pretty awesome that it happened).

I was also blown away at how not very nice the other bands were to us. We weren't from around there, but it's cool to be cordial. It's like no one was interested in trying to enrich their scene or ours by interacting/exchanging info/networking to get more/better shows, or shows that aren't battle of the bands for that matter.

Anyways, I had an awesome night regardless. Most definitely the weirdest show we've played. Well, that might not be true, but it's the first show we've played in a gated community.

Anyone else in a band and play in a weird/strange place???? Story time.

and go!

[Guest markovianprocess]

I played a show on a boat in Glasgow that has been converted into a venue which still sits on the river. That was my 3rd show ever actually.

In June I'm going to play a combined poetry and 8-bit music night in this hippie style cafe in Edinburgh.

[daniel]

The guitarist in my high school band had a Dojo on his property (it was his Dad's, he rented it out) and we tried to play a show there once. It was fun but it echoed like crazy haha.

[steventangent]

I played at this huge biker festival out in the country. There was a massive wooden stage that was all enclosed, and it was a million goddamn degrees in there. It was like standing in a box, with a big wooden barrier to boot. Just out in the sun, in a huge field that was bordered by train tracks.

And you know what...there are certain stereotypes to bikers, and there are anti-stereotypes to them as well. My whole family are/were bikers, and it's not a big deal. You'll meet a lot of people like that, regular, normal, friendly people who enjoy riding.

But most of them are assholes. They buy into their own bullshit. A lot of them are jingoistic, racist, small-minded, backwards, bigot assholes. I'm not just talking about 1 percenters; I'm talking about any time you get a bunch of fucking people together, put them in leather in the hot sun, and soak them in beer. Just let the ignorance fester. Even the ones that are supposed to be "religious." People in groups are fucking unbearable, and bikers in groups...yikes.

So here we are, standing in this wooden box, in the middle of this field, surrounded by these fuckers. Playing a three day festival to raise money for some leukemia patients. And while I'm loading my shit in, all these fuckers are like, "look at this faggot." The vibe was totally shitty. So we start playing, and we're doing all these bullshit classic rock covers of shit that I can't stand, and I'm jumping on the barrier and it's swaying like a jungle, and every 2 or 3 songs a freight train would go by, and, seeing a bunch of people gathered, the engineers would invariably blow their whistles. The entire time. And this festival was a couple of acres of people and motorcycles, so every time a train went by it would just obliterate the sound for the remainder of the song.

And, in typical asshole fashion, after we were done, drunken bikers would walk up and pretend they were cool with us the whole time. "yeah, you guys rock! wooooo!" Not sarcastically, mind you, but just because after they heard us they decided not to be stupid cocks for a minute.

Also, I categorically refuse to play "battles of bands," but the ONE time I got talked into it by the same shitty band I was in that played that festival, the band before us were a bunch of middle aged dudes with VERY expensive equipment and massive egos that played "For Whom The Bell Tolls." And Mr. Expensive Gibson Explorer And Mesa Halfstack completely flubbed the solo.

So just to be a shit, I played through the solo several times during our soundcheck. Maybe it's the biker in me.

[scottheisel]

The two venues I probably visited the most when I was in high school were the Bait Shop (an actual bait shop on the side of a river) and the Cabin (an actual log cabin, also on the side of a river). I kinda miss going to shows in random-ass places; I feel like those types of shows still happen in Cleveland but I'm just never clued into them.

[pastepunk]

Ambulance - I see you're from Fredericksburg - I live in Fairfax. What county was the show in/what was the name of the development? Sounds like something I'd hear about in Loudon in all of the new monster developments there... kind of cool that kids in that development were able to organize something like that.

[theambulancereview]

Ambulance - I see you're from Fredericksburg - I live in Fairfax. What county was the show in/what was the name of the development? Sounds like something I'd hear about in Loudon in all of the new monster developments there... kind of cool that kids in that development were able to organize something like that.

Hey buddy! It was in Locust Grove, VA in a development called Lake of the Woods. Really nice place, just felt really out of place there. And it's super cool that they were able to put it on, more kids and developments should do that around there. I book at a local library 6 times a year, and those shows are always killer. If you ever know of anyone that does house shows/basement style things in your neck of the woods, send us their way!

[benc]

Cool story bro

[jawbroken]

i'm surprised you got in without issue.

my band played a chinese restaurant a couple months ago. It was loads of fun, but I was stuck behind a support column the whole time.

[birdwell]

used to attend shows all the time at this Chinese food place that was across the road from my neighborhood called Pei-King, that was odd, place still smelled of Chinese food through-out the shows, but there was no food to be purchased.

there used to be shows at a branch-library as well, i played my first show with a band there and my first solo show at this branch-library

[xlynwoodx]

When I saw your location I thought for sure you played in Aquia Harbor.