The Soda Bar

 Hey everyone its time again for another wonderful edition of The Penguin Gazette. First, allow me to apologize for the tardiness of this post, as the last few weeks have been a whirlwind of shit. To make a long story short, and to wet some appetites, there's been birthdays, deaths, days that have felt like death, cops, and some of the most amazing food I've ever had the pleasure of eating, but that is for another time. Right now I want to get some shit off my chest.

Last Wednesday 3/22/12 my wife and I went to the Soda Bar in San Diego to watch a performance by the amazingly soulful Allen Stone. Unfortunately I'm not going to be telling you about the concert because I NEED to tell you about all the bullshit that happened prior to and during the show. Also I will tell you why I NEVER want to go to Soda Bar again! The thing that sucks about that is A it's right around the corner from my house, and B if they keep bringing acts like Allen Stone then I will have to go back. Kind of a catch 22 (damned if I do and damned if I don't). Anyways here we go...

Lets start off with tickets...So Anya purchased our tickets back in January when we heard about the show and had them placed on "Will Call" at the venue. That's almost 2 months ahead of schedule, so you can imagine how pissed off we were when we got to the venue and they told us that the will call list wasn't even printed yet! Let's put this into perspective, we showed up to the place almost an hour (6pm and the doors open at 7pm) before the doors were supposed to open and the place was already getting filled with people and the seats were going quick! Another thing that pissed us off was my wife got an email pretty much telling her that we could pick up our tickets and be let in at 7. That was a crock of shit! The only people they let in that had this magical VIP ticket. We didn't see an option to buy that on the website for the venue but I guess it was on Allen's site, so boo on Soda bar for not making that option available and boo on us for not checking.

Now the wait starts...So we waited outside while we watched people go in and get all the good spots, and while we waited and the line grew and grew....and grew, we noticed a group of people that decided that waiting in line ( BEHIND US ) was something they didn't want to do. They hung out in front and the only thing that ran through my head was "If that door opens and they try to step in before us...someones going to get their head smashed into the wall". Sounds a bit extreme but we had been the first ones in line for almost 2 hours now and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let someone just post up like they owned the place. So the closer it came to the venue opening the more pissed I got and the more people behind us (IN LINE WHERE THEY SHOULD'VE BEEN) started to notice these line hopping bastards, and as we do when we want to be noticed but don't want to be directly rude to people....we had LOUD CONVERSATIONS with each other. REALLY LOUD! We started saying the classic things like "I KNOW THEY BETTER NOT" and "WOW, I GUESS THE LINE ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH FOR SOME PEOPLE" (yes you can add your head and neck snapping attitude where its needed). Its always funny how they try to pretend like they don't hear you.

Well lucky for them 2 things happened. Thing 1 our friend Midori showed up and actually knew these people and introduced us to them and while part of me still wanted to cause them harm, Midori has a way of defusing situations so that was good. Thing 2 when the doors opened they did the right thing and stepped to the left and we walked in. Good thing because the line behind us which had all but turned into an angry mob due to the fact that we weren't let in until almost another hour after they originally told us they were gonna open to us "NoN VIP" people, and I don't think they were gonna stand for "cutters". So that problem dealt with we proceeded to enter...HIPSTER HELL!!

Hipster Hell: A small dingy gathering spot (normally a bar or apple store) where skinny jean, oversized glasses, ugly sweater, Tony Rich hat wearing, scruffy hair having people congregate to complain about their societal woes, drink Pabst (the cheapest swill out there) and praise their almighty IPhones. All the while thinking they are "Trend Setters" because they are not doing trendy things and are individuals...JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!

I swear everywhere I turned I saw another reason to stay childless and sterile because if I was the cause of one of these pretentious fucks I would shoot myself , while jumping off the tallest building I could find but not before I gave myself a million paper cuts and dipped each of those cuts into a salt and lemon mixture....yeah...its just like that. Matter of fact if you are one of these people or know any of these people...STOP IT!!! NO ONE LIKES YOU...UNLESS THEY ARE JUST LIKE YOU...IN THAT CASE....PUNCH THEM AND YOURSELF IN THE FACE....RIGHT NOW...GO AHEAD, I'LL WAIT............................but I digress.

I don't know what it is about bars that try to be music venues but everyone I've gone seem to have  the worst sound. This one was no different. It sounded like their sound guy was Hellen Keller....yeah figure that out. The acts would do a sound check and everything would sound ok but when it came time to play the gig you could barely hear the singers. If you didn't already know the words you were not going to learn them at the show that's for sure. Hell, it was hard to hear the actual music because everything was so mashed together sound wise that it was more noise than music. By the way...LOUDER DOESN'T ALWAYS EQUAL BETTER. I know people say "if it's too loud, your too old", but damn that. Sometimes shit is just too loud to make any sense out of or to appreciate.

To make a really long story short, if you're a musician and you're coming to San Diego please go somewhere other than the Soda Bar! PLEASE!!! You are NOT going to sound good and your fans are more likely to be pissed than satisfied. Mix that with the hipsters and the overflow of booze and you might have a riot on your hands.


Editor & Chief of The Penguin Gazette,
Rudy