House of Blues
Last night I went to see dinner and a show at the new House of Blues here in Dallas. A few observations:
I'm highly attracted to the downtown loft-living scene right across the street from the place. It's a hip & with-it section of Dallas, so I'd imagine it's pretty pricey. In theory, I could live downtown and commute to FloMo since my kids aren't in the school district anymore, but I'm sure living in a hip & with-it loft downtown cost about 10x what my enjoyable little home is the 'burbs costs.
Dinner was both good and reasonably priced. Sure, I could've spent $28 on some entrees, but Kelsey and I got out of there for right at $25 and that included a HUGE piece of chocolate cake.
We ordered the HUGE piece of chocolate cake because of a feature that lets you gain early access to the music hall (and skip any lines that might've formed waiting to get in) if your dinner check gets over $25. We used the feature, but it turns out the show we were going to see added an act and started earlier than normal. The cake was still worth it.
We browsed the gift store. I've become convinced that you don't buy stuff from gift shops like that in your own home city. If I were in some other city on vacation or something, I probably would've found some hat or something as an "I was there" gesture but since I can go there pretty much anytime I didn't feel the need. Neither did Kelsey, and in the teen world that means something more than in my world.
They have a gospel music brunch every Sunday with all-you-can-eat southern style breakfast (whatever that means. I think I know, being from the Deep South and all, but I've learned that those that aren't southern--and, no Texas, you are NOT southern in that sense--call things southern that aren't my experience with southern). I can tell you that might just be a better worship experience than 80% of the churches in America provide on any given Sunday.
They told me I couldn't bring my digital camera (it's a little one) into the music hall. This was strange to me since there were guys with phones way bigger than my camera taking video, but, hey, whatever, man.
$5 to park? Not a bad deal at all given it's a high price area to park in by the American Airlines center and very trendy.
Gotta love shows where each band sells their new CD's for $5, too. I don't know how they make money doing that. Maybe it's just for the exposure of the deal and they make the cash on the t-shirts, which went for $15. You could "package" 2 t-shirts and the newest CD for $30 from every band. And, why does the t-shirt guy have a tip jar?
Apparently, one of the draws for bands to play House of Blues is how well they treat even "small, touring bands that have to work for a living." Free room for the night with showers (one of the band members commented that very few people know how great that is) and free dinner at the restaurant. I think that's pretty cool.
House of Blues takes away all the negatives from your concert-going experience. There are signs that say no fighting. Also no moshing. It's a smoke-free environment. There are huge, polite bouncers everywhere...and they have radios in case they need help. You even stand in line that's partially indoors. It's impeccably clean (they even search the teens coming in for Sharpies so they can't write on the walls or anything else). So was the crowd. One of the lead singers even commented that it was surreal to see "all the middle schoolers who came out tonight, considering there are 4 bars in this room alone." It was an "all ages" show, so the bartenders carded every single person every single time. (I guess that's how they get around it, anyway).
That sometimes those negatives are what makes the concert-going experience. Standing in the rain for an hour to get into some dive to hear some band trying to make it getting the crowd to mosh or crowd surf can be a pretty great memory...and add to that some ringing ears and having to wash the concert shirt you just bought because it smells like smoke already. Well, maybe the memory is better than the reality, which is why HOB fixed all those things.
The bands...well, let's just say that I think I'm getting old. It was a labor of love for Kid1, and I enjoyed the time I spent with her, but, I found myself wishing I'd had a book or two by the time the headliners came out (and they were less than stellar compared to the three opening bands--two of which were Green Day wanna-be's, and maybe they will be, but they weren't today) so I could sit at the back and read while my kid loaded her hard drive with more memories and $5 CD's.
Last night I went to see dinner and a show at the new House of Blues here in Dallas. A few observations:
I'm highly attracted to the downtown loft-living scene right across the street from the place. It's a hip & with-it section of Dallas, so I'd imagine it's pretty pricey. In theory, I could live downtown and commute to FloMo since my kids aren't in the school district anymore, but I'm sure living in a hip & with-it loft downtown cost about 10x what my enjoyable little home is the 'burbs costs.
Dinner was both good and reasonably priced. Sure, I could've spent $28 on some entrees, but Kelsey and I got out of there for right at $25 and that included a HUGE piece of chocolate cake.
We ordered the HUGE piece of chocolate cake because of a feature that lets you gain early access to the music hall (and skip any lines that might've formed waiting to get in) if your dinner check gets over $25. We used the feature, but it turns out the show we were going to see added an act and started earlier than normal. The cake was still worth it.
We browsed the gift store. I've become convinced that you don't buy stuff from gift shops like that in your own home city. If I were in some other city on vacation or something, I probably would've found some hat or something as an "I was there" gesture but since I can go there pretty much anytime I didn't feel the need. Neither did Kelsey, and in the teen world that means something more than in my world.
They have a gospel music brunch every Sunday with all-you-can-eat southern style breakfast (whatever that means. I think I know, being from the Deep South and all, but I've learned that those that aren't southern--and, no Texas, you are NOT southern in that sense--call things southern that aren't my experience with southern). I can tell you that might just be a better worship experience than 80% of the churches in America provide on any given Sunday.
They told me I couldn't bring my digital camera (it's a little one) into the music hall. This was strange to me since there were guys with phones way bigger than my camera taking video, but, hey, whatever, man.
$5 to park? Not a bad deal at all given it's a high price area to park in by the American Airlines center and very trendy.
Gotta love shows where each band sells their new CD's for $5, too. I don't know how they make money doing that. Maybe it's just for the exposure of the deal and they make the cash on the t-shirts, which went for $15. You could "package" 2 t-shirts and the newest CD for $30 from every band. And, why does the t-shirt guy have a tip jar?
Apparently, one of the draws for bands to play House of Blues is how well they treat even "small, touring bands that have to work for a living." Free room for the night with showers (one of the band members commented that very few people know how great that is) and free dinner at the restaurant. I think that's pretty cool.
House of Blues takes away all the negatives from your concert-going experience. There are signs that say no fighting. Also no moshing. It's a smoke-free environment. There are huge, polite bouncers everywhere...and they have radios in case they need help. You even stand in line that's partially indoors. It's impeccably clean (they even search the teens coming in for Sharpies so they can't write on the walls or anything else). So was the crowd. One of the lead singers even commented that it was surreal to see "all the middle schoolers who came out tonight, considering there are 4 bars in this room alone." It was an "all ages" show, so the bartenders carded every single person every single time. (I guess that's how they get around it, anyway).
That sometimes those negatives are what makes the concert-going experience. Standing in the rain for an hour to get into some dive to hear some band trying to make it getting the crowd to mosh or crowd surf can be a pretty great memory...and add to that some ringing ears and having to wash the concert shirt you just bought because it smells like smoke already. Well, maybe the memory is better than the reality, which is why HOB fixed all those things.
The bands...well, let's just say that I think I'm getting old. It was a labor of love for Kid1, and I enjoyed the time I spent with her, but, I found myself wishing I'd had a book or two by the time the headliners came out (and they were less than stellar compared to the three opening bands--two of which were Green Day wanna-be's, and maybe they will be, but they weren't today) so I could sit at the back and read while my kid loaded her hard drive with more memories and $5 CD's.
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