Since the Emerson Theater isnt open to constructive criticism on their page, Id like to leave the following 1 out of 5 star review I just tried leaving but cant because the administrator thinks theyre doing a community service by putting on terribly run shows... I hate to take the time to be negative about anything because The Emerson Theater made a huge impact on me during my teenage years. I saw many incredible shows here and met many legendary performers outside afterwards. I even volunteered here for an entire summer doing load/unload and this experience gave me a direct connection with music that summer that has went on to shape me as a person. First and foremost, the sound in this place is terrible. Lets face it, Ive been seeing shows here for the past 15 years of my life. Ive never bragged about The Emerson having great sound but there have been many moments that it has been below average. However, in the past things have worked themselves out throughout the night and typically the last 2-3 bands sound improved from the first 2-3. This venue needs to hold a higher level of respect for touring bands though. Its very unwelcoming to have a band have to just deal. They are your guests and I can validate for a fact that Dog Fashion Disco are one of the most down-to-earth bunch of guys on this planet. They dont by any means think theyre rockstars but they do love/respect their fans. They have a very loyal following and there were people that drove from Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, and Kentucky to see this show. Every one of those people I spoke too, complained about the sound. Even the band complained about the sound onstage! And nothing was done about it! Instead you had monitors onstage with nothing coming out of them and the band was expected to play out of the house sound. I dont know if anyone that runs this place is a performer but if you cant hear yourself playing, how are you going to deliver the performance you feel people deserve? Youre probably not. Winging it is something you have to do in order to make the show go on and that is exactly what DFD had to do last night. If not for the energy of the crowd, this show would have been a complete and total failure in my eyes. Which is sad to say because they just recently reunited and havent toured in 8 years so they really need the energy off these shows to get back into things. And then you congest the bill with local bands, most of which were forced into selling presales to play short sets in a place with terrible sound. Thats not very gratifying for the performers or the audience. There were people who payed good money in traveling expenses to make it out to this show and by the time the actual touring bands started to take the stage, people were already starting to get exhausted. This also meant the touring bands were given less time to play. In the past, The Emerson wisely put 2 locals on before the regional/national acts but at this show someone thought it was necessary to put at least 5 locals on before the actual touring bands played. This is a testament to how bad things are getting. When you have to pigeonhole locals to do all the work for you...just to sell more tickets. These bands shouldnt even be to blame for how poor things are ran at the Emerson Theater. Most of these people are just trying to get experience playing but when one of those local bands is playing a Blink 182 cover something needs to be said. The Emerson Theater used to have a policy against cover songs! I remember Josh turning off the P.A. when local bands who were trying to get recognized pulled those kind of stunts. This is all the promoters fault for booking high-school level bands on a bill that had bands that have been touring for the past two decades. Indianapolis is full of talented, skilled bands that would have loved the opportunity to play with Dog Fashion Disco, Psychostick, and The Bunny The Bear but I am certain most of them wised up and didnt want to play here because of how poor things are being ran. It didnt used to be that way! Of course, I dont mean to bruise anyones egos or try to tell anyone all their hard work has amounted to nothing. Someone at least supported DFD enough to book this show there and for that, thank you. Next time this band comes to Indianapolis, I dont think youll be so lucky as they all said they do not wish to return to a place that cares this little about the bands and their audience. In this day and age, there are many websites such as Indiegogo, GoFundMe, and Kickstarter that you guys could possibly do a campaign to earn some type of finances to make this place a little bit more like what it used to be. Having better sound is a start but this place needs a lot of work and improvement. Something that I feel needs to be done in this renovation is making this place a little bit more handicapped accessible. I had a handicapped guest with me last night, it was his very first time to the Emerson, and trust me...he wasnt very impressed either. It really wouldnt take much to smooth out the floor in the entrance to make it easier to push an individual in a wheel chair into the venue. Id be more than happy to try to help rally support for it but I have a feeling that my comment is going to be deleted and thrown in the trash because no one here likes to hear criticism. If this venue has decided to keep running bad shows and not listening to the fans...sooner or later you wont have any. I am happy to go see a show and dont really expect much from any venue but a good time. I still managed to have a good time last night but I personally feel like you all need to improve this place dramatically. There are tons of venues going through hard times but they still put their fans and the bands first. Something you guys could certainly learn a thing or two about.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 20:26:58 +0000
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