When I first heard that we were booked to appear at the Knitting Factory I was very excited. This venue has a great reputation, is in a great location in Lower Manhattan (right around the corner from where the Mudd Club used to be), and has a hip quotient off the charts.
When we arrived there we found the place filled with people. Walking around, we discovered many levels of bars, performance rooms and places to hang out. The main room (where we were originally shceduled to perform) was awesome; great stage, tons of people doing their Manhattan thing.
We later discovered that we were "moved" to a lower level bar because they had booked an opening act with more draw than us. The lower level bar (Tap Room) was EMPTY!! The room was booked with four acts; 7:30 8:30 9:30 & 10:30 with us slated for the 9:30 slot. The two bands (and I use the term loosely) that preceded us were, in a word, PATHETIC! Boring acoustic duos who couldn't write themselves out of a paper bag!
Somehow before we started the room filled up a (little) bit and ironically we did our finest set EVER to an almost empty space! Go figure...
The band on for the 10:30 slot actually sounded OK but waiting till the end of the night to get paid wound up being torture. Especially after checking out the tons of people milling around the main room and wishing we were there instead of the "basement".
After talking with the paymaster I was told that we were the only band to bring in paying customers and subsequently to get paid ourselves; Twenty Whole Dollars!
That's show biz.
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