Addison at what will be referred to affectionately as the hole in the ground underneath the Knitting Factory

The Old Office was everything it promised to be.

In my brief exchange of myspace messages with Josh from Addison, I likened it to a dungeon -- a comparison based solely on the general nature of the shows that take place there, for it is where the bands deemed unfit to play the mainspace stage are "banished". I meant it in a figurative way, but OH, little did I know how right I was on several levels. Secretively tucked away in a corner of the basement, it is in fact, quite literally the Knitting Factory's DUNGEON. It's a basement with a bar in the back, that's what it is. It looks like a basement, it feels like a basement, hell, it even serves actual storage purposes. It has no stage, but is ever so plushly equipped with a... platform (if it can even be considered that) simulating to some small degree the illusion of a stage, like the kind that can be found at establishments intended to serve primarily as bars but double as performance spaces (Siberia, Lakeside, Pete's Candy Store, to name a few). It's just this big, level protrusion from the floor, elevated three inches (if even that) above the rest of... floor.... And the sound system is awful.

The band played to some members of their touring crew, two of their girlfriends, and..... me. (There were also some boisterous drunkards present at aforementioned bar in the back, who'd either stumbled in obliviously or had arrived unfashionably early for the bands that were scheduled to play later on in the night, screaming lewd requests at them that would most accurately be categorized as sexual harrassment. And I must say, they seemed to have enjoyed being sexually harrassed.)
By god, I must have been the only fan in the place. I tried to sing along, but I wasn't familiar with all the songs they played. (I still totally had it down word for word though.) And then -- oh, get this -- and then I whipped out my camera and tried to photograph them. Just one solitary fan clicking away with her malfunctioning camera loaded with dying batteries. Luckily, this lasted only about a song and a half before my batteries died completely.

They begged the drunkards (and me) to take pity on them and buy their EP, asked if anybody would offer them a place to spend the night, bonded with some of the drunkards. Here was this band, playing to practically nobody in a fucking subterranean converted STORAGE SPACE, saying "hey, can we stay with one of you?" I did buy an EP, though not as an act of charity, for I had been waiting several long months for them to swing by NYC so that I might be able to get my hands on that EP. I spoke to Josh and Matt for a bit before going off on my merry way. They may have pesruaded me to succumb and go to the CBGB's show tomorrow night after all since a show on the upcoming Saturday, I was told, is not likely to happen.... That's just excellent, now I'm plagued by indecision. It'll take a lot of effort and persuasion to work out my schedule conflicts, but I might be able to pull it off. We'll see how I'm feeling tomorrow, I'll sleep on it.

Some ghetto-ass concert experience that was. I wouldn't've traded it for anything, though.