We don’t write enough about the fights. We justify it thus: we’re there for the bands. We don’t write about drink specials, or wall fixtures, or the paper the schedules are printed on either.
Except, sometimes we do. (200 gram #74 medium cardstock! A draft and a half on Wednesdays between 4 & 7 p.m.!) So here’s what we say about the fights:
Too many of ‘em right at the front door of the Bullfinch. At Hamilton’s, where folks still bother to go inside and get drunk first, the side room might as well have a ring of rope around it and a bell in the corner. D’ollaire’s is the only place with a surefire, if draconian, mechanism for quelling the violence—a phalanx of well-paid bouncers. Your high ticket fees at work.
The problem is not the alcohol, we suggest.
The problem is not even those wretched metal bands which exhort everyone to “go wild,” or the well-intentioned indie bands which advise us to “rise up.”
The problem is the perception of our culture as a place to cut loose. Which it always has been, in the artistic sense. But now the finer distinction have been moshed and pulped and windmilled away.

Whatever happened to schoolyards and loading docks? Take it outside, fellas.

Folk frolics at the ‘Finch with The Ol’ Dirt Daubers and Korn’s-a-Krackin’, with a short opening story-song set by The Jean Shepherds… A couple of bands which crave audience suggestions at the cover-song coven Hamilton’s: Let George Do It and Pick & Pat… Case Dismissed and Gulf Headliners, trying to be civil at D’ollaire’s, but they must be bummed that there’s not a larger place to play in the area…