Comments on: Patrick Watson, Les Breastfeeders @ El Rey, 3/19/07

By: Canadian Coffee Break: The Fourteenth

Canadian Coffee Break: The Fourteenth — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 02:38:13 +0000

[...] My first lineup: The Montreal Experience: Tricot Machine Les Amis Au Pakistan Les Breastfeeders [...]

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:27:37 +0000

Agreed once again. The HOB is straight-up theme park. Goofy-ass phony-aged trinkets hanging everywhere. Surprised the servers aren’t dressed up like Yosemite Sam and shit.

And, of course, I’m not down with their hidden fees, but they do have a pretty cool 2-for-Tu special which is an every-Tuesday announcement for 2-for-1 ticket offers. Well….that offer would be a lot better if they actually had some quality gigs.

I might go to the HOB twice a year, but it seems that I’m at the Trouby twice a month. Disregarding crowd capacity, the Trouby has had some killer shows in the last half year–better, imo, than the El Rey, HOB and Fonda combined.

By: omit0

omit0 — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 22:05:55 +0000

Jeff, I’d have to agree that the El Rey and HOB compare well to each other . . . in terms of coming up with ways to rip off their customers.

Nowhere else other than HOB have I been forced to pay a *higher* price than the one advertised. I try to avoid paying fees for buying through Ticketmaster, Ticketweb, etc., so when I saw that Richard Thompson was playing HOB and it wasn’t yet sold out, I decided to buy my ticket at the door. The advertised price was $25. When I got to the ticket window, the price was $29!

I was a bit, you know, “surprised”. They told me that the ticket was still $25, but that HOB charges a $4 fee for buying at the window. I re-checked the HOB ad later, just to make sure that there was no notice of a higher price at the door. There wasn’t. I’ll never go back there if I can avoid it.

This is not even to mention the insult to American culture that is the hideous fake juke joint decor. In terms of larger (900-1000) venues, I’d have to go with the Fonda as leaps and bounds better than either the El Rey or HOB.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 21:00:12 +0000

Agreed. You can’t compare the Fake Boobsadour to the El Rey. best comparison to El rey? hmmm…. maybe HOB Sunset Strip? And I would have to say that HOB is a better sounding venue. Also better sightlines.

I briefly looked online and El Rey concert capacity seems to be 900 whereas HOB seems to be 1000.

By: ryan

ryan — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 17:00:53 +0000

don't get me wrong omito, i'm not saying one is better than the other. I just mentioned the beer price. Troub is a smaller venue, roughly half the capacity of el rey, so this is apples to oranges. But for what it's worth I definitely favor the oldman snack bar @ the troub over any meal options the el rey might propose.

By: omit0

omit0 — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:00:18 +0000

You love the El Rey? Are you kidding? It’s the worst venue in town. Every time I go there, they’ve dreamt up a new way to interfere with actually seeing and hearing the bands. Last time I went, they filled up the entire section in front of the sound board with chairs. There were as many people standing crammed into the space behind the board (about 1/4 the size) as were sitting in front of it.

The beers might be cheaper at the El Rey (which I’m not sure about), but if you’re going for the music, the Troubadour is far superior – great sight lines and sound system, an upstairs where you will never have to buy dinner to sit down, a comfortable front bar to separate out the people who just want to talk, and on and on.