Surprise, surprise- I didn't quite get to all the writing I thought I would on Sunday, so I'm now even more behind than usual. I'll post about the shows I went to over the weekend later this evening, along with the full listings for the week, but for now, I wanted to remind everyone that I've got a pair of MSTRKRFT tickets for Thursday night and a pair of Dirty Sweet tickets for Saturday. I will choose my MSTRKRFT winner at random by 5 pm on Wednesday, so it's not too late to enter. (email sddialedin AT gmail DOT com)
I had the opportunity to do a tour of the Hard Rock Hotel this past weekend and I think people will be impressed. I had been to Sweetwater, one of the bars owned by Cindy Crawford's beau, but we know that I'm just not down with NY and LA style clubs in SD, so I probably should've just skipped that whole experience. This time around, we got to check out some of the conference rooms that will be used as concert rooms. There is supposed to be a full fledged music venue, but it wasn't really clear if it's just being held back or if plans somehow changed last minute. Of course, as Hard Rock's go everywhere, there is a good amount of rock memorabilia throughout all of the hallways, including a whole hall of Beatles and Stones stuff.
The first room we saw is called "The Edge". It's the corner of the building, as a music venue will hold about 400, and has beautiful floor to ceiling windows, spaced about 5 feet apart along the two external walls, giving pretty views of the convention center and 5th Avenue below. The room wasn't set up with a stage- but I'm pretty sure Hard Rock knows how to convert a room- so this will be the room used on Saturday for Dirty Sweet, The Silent Comedy, and The Sess.
The second room we looked at was a much larger room that can be divided in up to 6 separate meeting rooms. It's called "Legends" and is the room that MSTRKRFT will be using on Thusday night. There are large white panels on all the walls that look like TV projection screens, but in fact are part of the acoustic setup. We were told that this room can hold about 700 with the full stage. I imagine with all the staging and lighting and the type of music going down on Thursday, if you're even just intrigued by dance music, this is probably an event for you.
After showing us the main rooms, we went up to the Terrace, checked out the bar and pool up there, and the "rock wall" inside the hotel that has some of the most recognizable band logos in rock history, including some surprises like NOFX and OKGo,among RHCP, The Sex Pistols,etc. The wall is very visually stimulating.
I was encouraged by the tour of the Hard Rock Hotel. I was mostly impressed when our host told me that for shows, the bars would be handled differently then the regular bars. He couldn't tell me prices, but assured me drink prices would be reasonable (he read my complaints about $10 vodka tonics at Sweetwater). "We can't expect people to drop $20 for a concert ticket and then another $10 per drink."
The other thing that impressed me is that the venue is circumventing Ticketmaster prices by making their tickets only available at the hotel concierge desk. $20 even gets you into MSTRKRFT, who will be joined by LA Riots, San Diego's own "Shark Attack" DJs, and Walter Meego. There's also a live art show. The whole thing goes down from 8pm-2am on Thursday, with MSTRKRFT hitting the stage at midnight.
For Saturday night, $15 even gets you in the door to see some of San Diego's finest...Dirty Sweet, The Silent Comedy, and The Sess. Or you can e-mail me and hope to win my pair of tickets...
Either way, I hope people take the time to check out the Hard Rock for some of the shows they're booking. I'm a little torn, personally, because I had other plans for Saturday night, but I might try and work it into my plans because I think Silent Comedy will blow up that room.
