Station 58

If you're in a band just starting out, this will probably be one of your first venues. They have open mic nights on Thursdays which features lots of awful cover bands. On occasion, you'll hear a good band at an open mic night, but don't expect to be that lucky in one try.

It's tough to get a lot of people to a show at Station 58, and if you can consider your band to be good. People going generally like the grunge and metal bands, but there is an alternative band once and a great while.

Since the fire, they have remodeled which has opened so much space and made the venue great for the audience in that perspective. Unfortunately, one of the biggest drawbacks is the light and sound operators. The lighting guy will just press random buttons. Sometimes it works out very well but most of the time the lighting looks uncoordinated and if you're a member of a band I hope you can play all of your parts blindfolded because you are going to get about 20 blackouts per song.

The sound guy has few redeeming qualities too. When he feels like he is grooving to a song, he'll become the unwanted "DJ" of the band and start screwing with the panning to the beat. Hard left for a measure then hard right for lengthy segments of songs.

Like I said, if you're just starting, Station 58 is almost unavoidable, so if you have to play there, just grin and bear it. The bartenders are very friendly, so if there are some awful bands, just chat with them. If you have the option of playing somewhere else, I'd say take it.