After many shows across many years at more venues than I can probably remember, I have finally come to grips with the worst venue for shows is The Chance Theater in Poughkeepsie.
Living in Central Jersey, The Chance is quite the hike for me, but I once drove to Providence, RI to see The Slackers just because, so that isn't really an issue. However, Poughkeepsie, unbeknownst to me at the time, is one of the worst cities I've had the pleasure of going to, reminiscent of a slightly better Newark. When the upside for a location is ample parking, you have a real problem.
The one time I managed to go to The Chance was to see The Pilfers. The show was nearly cancelled and two of the four bands didn't show up, because the pre-sales were so poor. But The Pilfers and The Hub City Stompers were there and Coolie Ranx sold me a Pilfers shirt, while we talked about the Chawaleng record release show. However, the venue was cavernous and as the other bands knew, the turnout was quite poor. Now, The Pilfers were rarely playing anywhere at that point in time and couldn't make a dent in sales, so I should have realized, Poughkeepsie is not a ska or punk town.
So, when I saw The Adicts were touring the US, there were two local shows, one in New York City on Thursday about 5 minutes from where I work and one at The Chance tonight. A true no-brainer in my book, I should just go see them at Stage 48, which would be easy and local and no-muss, no-fuss. The problem was that Rancid was also in New York the same day and announced their show first, leaving me with Rancid tickets on Thursday and Friday and an opening on Saturday night.
Part of me, the rational part of me, thought perhaps I could sell my ticket to see Rancid on Thursday night and see the Adicts, who I never saw before. But vigorous me, felt I could go to four shows in four days and should just go see The Adicts in Poughkeepsie, with some version of Sham 69 playing in Long Branch tomorrow. So, I purchased my ticket, despite thinking, how would the Adicts sell enough tickets to justify playing there...in fact, that is exactly why I bought my ticket as soon as I found out, to do my part in justify their arrival.
Of course, rational me was correct as the Adicts cancelled about 30 minutes ago, making The Chance 0 for 2 on delivering the show as promised. I was very excited to see The Adicts, a band I've never seen before and one known for putting on a great show, but alas, because Rancid tickets went on sale first, which was a great show in its own right, and my greed to wedge four shows into four days, there is a strong chance I will never get to see The Adicts live, because I believed The Chance could deliver on a show.
In the good news department, TicketWeb was really standup about the entire endeavor, providing both notification and processing my refund in the time it took me to write about this, so good for them. I appreciate when a small company does things right...especially since they ticket about half the shows I go to.
