Club Retro

Cody dude you went to a bogus show. I have been to retro tons of times and it's usually pretty full. The bands need to have fans for there to be people there. And yeah having a bunch of 16 year old dudes and some chicks going crazy with puberty induced excitement can get annoying but what do you expect when you go to see a hardcore or metal band.  My friends used to play retro regularly and you would rarely find them in the VIP. We were all in the pit! Overall retro is cool. Mainly for those in their teen years who can't enjoy seeing a band and kicking back a cold one. If thats not a place for you then simply don't go. There are plenty of venues in the sacramento area. But what it all boils down to is if you get to see a kick ass band and have a killer time...who gives a shit.

Club Retro is pretty cool and Cody K. is tripping. Every show I've been to at Club Retro has been packed, but without feeling like you're a sardine in a can like at The Boardwalk.

The venue doesn't let bands cuss or disrobe or basically do anything too offensive, but considering bands like The Secretions play there regularly, the rules aren't that intrusive and shouldn't stop any bands from playing a show.

The place is huge, great sound system, huge stage, really cool lighting system. It's new and clean and has an affordable snack bar.  Because it's at a church, it has a large parking lot. When it's cold and there's a huge line, it is so nice to wait in a warm car. So nice.

The negatives:

1.) It's in Orangevale.

2.) The crowd is almost exclusively underage kids. At 25 I don't like being the oldest person there aside from the bands.

3.) Shows start super early. I am just not ready to rock out at 7 p.m. (On the plus side, you can stay for an entire show and then catch a bar show downtown.)

4.) Sometimes the vibe is too chill.

When headliners take the stage, the place goes crazy and kids stage drive, mosh, and it's great. But many times during openers, the vibe is just off and it doesn't feel like an exciting live music club, but a community/church youth night.

Still, considering the alternatives, this place is the best for all-ages show.

This would be a good venue - if people went to it. The room is huge, and the sound and light setup is super nice, but it's about a two-minute drive from the Boardwalk. Why go to Retro and hang out with 10 other kids watching some metal bands you've never heard of when you can just hop over to the Boardwalk?

That being said, they are pretty open to giving relatively new bands an opportunity to play shows (something that can't be said about the Boardwalk), and they (as of the last time I played there) had probably the second-best sound guy I had ever worked with. That may not mean a ton to spectators, but it makes things much easier on bands.

The upstairs room Melony mentioned seems strangely out of place to me. There are free drinks, snacks, video games and foosball (IIRC) for the bands, but I'm not sure it's encouraging the right mindset. Small, local shows should be about walking around and meeting people (especially for the members of the bands), not sitting in some kind of "VIP room" and just watching everyone else. It might be cool in a huge, well-known club, but when the dance floor is almost empty, you should do your duty and go join the others.