Grand Opening with CoRE, etc. The Warsaw June 25, 2010
The Warsaw's grand opening on Friday night reminded Aftermath a lot of a trip to Super Happy Fun Land. On the one hand, some great bands took the stage and put on solid performances - Aftermath even bought a 500 Megatons of Boogie CD - while other performers' sets didn't even sound like music.
At 9:30 p.m., two hours after doors had opened to the public, Automatic Thrill took the stage and played to a crowd of less than 10, not including the four smokers hanging out outside. We were certain, or at least hopeful, that more people would eventually show up; instead this set the tone for the rest of the evening.
The Warsaw's sound quality was on par with that of Fitzgerald's - not very good, but tolerable - but it didn't have any chairs, barstools, couches or seats of any kind on which clientele could sit down and relax. Besides the bar, the club had one table, but no stools or chairs to accompany it. Aftermath ordered a drink and awkwardly set up shop, receiving a few dirty glances from the others in the crowd for taking the club's sole table.
Ten o'clock rolled around, and Aftermath realized we were sweating our balls off. Worriedly, we looked around to see what would be keeping us cool for the duration of the evening and saw... a few ceiling fans.
Shit.
Concerned about the number of people that would eventually (and still hopefully) show up to see CoRE perform, we prepared ourselves mentally for a hot evening. We were born and raised in Houston, so hot and muggy isn't exactly foreign to us.
By the end of Automatic Thrill's set, the crowd had tripled in size, though it was still pretty pitiful for a grand opening. But everyone was hanging out at the bar, avoiding the front of the stage like the dance floor at a junior-high prom. If nothing else, whoever was in charge of the in-between-bands music had good taste: White Stripes, Vampire Weekend, The Dead Weather, A Perfect Circle and Radiohead all played while band members disassembled and reassembled their equipment.
We can't emphasize enough how much The Warsaw should look into getting some chairs, or a couch or something. Even a few bean bags would do. As is, one corner of the building has two ledges that jut out, which patrons can use as seats and footrests. And it only seats about eight people, and that's if they sit close together.
12:30 a.m. rolled around, and Aftermath decided to do another head count. One, two, three... 25 people, including two bartenders, four band members and two door(wo)men were inside.
A quick Google search of CoRE on our new iPhone 4 (yeah, we got one) made us wish more people had shown up to see what was sure to be, for lack of a better word, an interesting show. CoRE took the stage to a Nine Inch Nails-ish backbeat of drums and a flute, which was purposefully sharp at times, giving the upcoming performance an air of foreboding.