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Lowdown on The Standards at Barfly

Feb 7, 2010 Uncategorized
Posted by Administrator

The Standards’ standard at Barfly on Saturday, February 6th, was beatworthy and tuneful with a really Brit-cool lead singer called Neil who knows how to perform as much as sing.

“Out with the Fire” is a great number, however the overzealousness of the Barfly’s dry ice maker nearly blanketing the whole stage in dry ice at the start of the number – so neither the band nor anyone could see what was happening – nearly killed the number before it started. We really liked “Already There” too, the number that came after it, and the band was able to get into its stride after that with both Neil and Mark, singer and lead guitarist, handling the gathering unruly crowd well and not letting attention wander to where there really needed to be some crowd management at the back.

The sound system made some of the numbers a little scratchy – and so it would be good to see The Standards at a venue somewhere else so that we could tell if it was just another Barfly “quirk” (as indicated below) or down to the band and how they handle their instruments. We suspect the former…

So the lowdown on the gig was that it was lessened by poor sound engineering and stage management “glitches”. Coupled with that is the inconsistency of promotional support and lack of any care about the audience coming along there to appreciate the gigs – as the barman knew nothing about who was playing AT ALL, either in the gig that The Standards were playing in or who the bands were in later gigs, nor did the guys downstairs care if you found your way up to where the gigs were playing as they were located at the front entrance to the bar and so there was no real ushering in to hear the music at all once in the door. And, hey, besides the barman and door staff, it also cost £8 rather than advertised £6 to get in! Besides all that the drinks were over-priced for the state of the place and cost of getting in there.

The worst came later, when the performance space management simply allowed a drunken punter to climb up on stage and fall down in the middle of where a band, The Wutars, were playing a garage number in the next gig following The Standards.

All that is what lets Barfly down – and not just The Standards. So rather slack, really. The Barfly needs a good spray, in such regards, so that it can kill the bugs that are in its way to being a cool place to be. The lay-out is good tho – and it is in a good location, and so it COULD be a good venue!! Right now, it lacks any “real cool” charm whatsoever.

However The Standards made Barfly look cool – if only for a few short numbers….