A new, loud experience
Last night I found myself in a dueling piano bar, at a going-away party for one of John’s friends. Have you heard of these? This place, Howl at the Moon, is apparently a national chain, though I hadn’t heard of such a thing before yesterday.
Basically it’s a bar with a stage featuring two pianos and four or five performers. They switch off onto other instruments from time to time, but mostly they play piano and sing popular songs from “Wild Thing” all the way through that new “not gonna write you a love song” song I’ve had stuck in my head for two weeks now. The audience sings along and, a few at a time, make fools of their drunk selves up on stage.
The performers were awesome, which made for an entertaining show, but holy hell was it ever LOUD. This wasn’t typical bar loud; it was approaching heavy-metal-concert loud. You had to shout in a person’s ear to be heard, which made communication difficult and conversation impossible. But hey, at least I wasn’t burdened by having to be all social and chatty.
My ears rang from the time we left until I went to sleep. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been shouting along with the songs and to the people near me until I found my voice raspy and hoarse on the way home.
I was just as entertained by the cougars at the table next to us as I was by the show. There were four or five of them, average age probably 40, with two guys who appeared to be in their late twenties. The women had certainly done themselves up for going out, but at least they wore appropriate clothing (except for that time one tried to take off another’s shirt). And, of course, they were DRUNK. Hilarious antics ensued. I wondered if their husbands knew where they were, and that they were grinding on anyone they bumped into, or if they cared.
In summary: Concept interesting. Music good but too loud. Musicians skilled. Drinks weak. Bachelorettes everywhere. People-watching excellent.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
heard of the place - Lauren tried to get me to go there a couple of times during law school but a) i was never terribly interested and b) she never called to pester me to show up so .. I didn’t. I’m not a fan of room-enveloping conversation-totally-crushing noise so, glad I didn’t.
July 10th, 2008 at 10:26 am
i think the best thing about that is the mirror that they write on when someone pays them… the best one i saw there the one time i went was, “stuart needs a lay!” and then they included his email address…
i think i’d need to see what stuart looked like first :-p