penny road pub. i would call this place a roadhouse. we were all looking for
patrick swzaze. its literally in the middle of nowhere in barrington. you are driving down (you guessed it)penny road and there are no street lights, there is nothing, then this massive bar. they have 2 stages, one on the main floor, one in the basement. we were in the basement, playing with 2 other bands: r&r and dropmouth. R&R played all covers, they were a 5
piece with a chick frontperson. they opened with ‘just a girl’ by no doubt, they played a good selection of songs but werent very technically sound. dropmouth was awesome, 4 piece with a front man. the very things that would make me want to rip on the guy were the same things
that made him awesome. rob told me he saw him hairspraying his do in the car before the set. he had painted nails and leather pants. but above all he had some vocal stamina. they sounded (at least vocally) like the disturbed (also from chicago, the singer chris also told me that they knew the band personally). they played a very long set of 4 min.+ songs, i was very anxious. we finally went on, there were a good deal of people there whom i didnt know or invite, they definitely dug us though. i handed out some cd’s after the set, i didnt recognize any of the faces. the sound man maurice was awesome, a very nice guy. i got paid a whopping(literally) $68 by the owner(?)/manager dave. he was pretty much of a dick and unfriendly despite my attempts to by professional and respectful but i cant complain after receiving probably our 2nd biggest paycheck ever. on the stage upstairs was a band called arra, they have a HUGE local following, they play all covers, or mostly i think. the upstairs was totally packed. I must
also bitch about the asshole security. when i first arrived and tried to load in, i had to tell them that i was in a band, i told them low profile and one commented, “oh, thats DEFINITELY the basement stage…”. i then asked if they could open a fire door to allow me to load in. they said that i could (and had to) but they refused to open it or help in any way(im sure they needed like 5 people at the door to take money)so i just said fuck it, ill load in thru the front door where they were standing. then a bitch security guard commented that,’well dont get mad now’ in a very sarcastic tone as if i was a 2nd grader. there was one guard though who was very cool, a black dude with a yankees hat, if hes reading this, youre down dude. great gig overall, despite some assholish behavior from some of the guards.
