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Carlos Colina |
Sunday, November 21, 2004
A couple of new venues for Straight Up music!
We've recently had the pleasure of making some new friends and playing some new venues.
Wicky Lounge is in Suffern, NY and is a very cool place. This place offers a variety of excellent drinks and one of their specialities is the martini. Hosting a diversified clientele, Wicky Lounge has an air of sophistication about it while remaining receptive and responsive to our kind of music. The people there are very nice and were kind enough to invite us back (see our gig schedule). There is a large dining area where diners can enjoy some fine fare and for the music lovers in the house (and there seems to be a good amount of those!), there is an intimate seating area with couches and tables right near the stage - please check it out!!! We were quite pleased to see a number of friends we hadn't seen in a while (thanks for coming out!). We enjoyed ourselves and look forward to getting back there soon! (I will make a point of going up there to sample some martinis and report back my findings!)
The Savoy Grill in Newark NJ is in the most positive sense a very upscale venue. It is brand new and the comfort and pleasure of their clientele comes first. The stage area comes with a curtain (we kinda' felt like the Wizard of Oz) that opens and closes for the live music and the music must start out as a background setting and may remain there most of the evening - in other words "keep it down". This was a positive challenge and allowed us to work on dynamics and the "audience wall". We were quite pleased when a number of diners got up and danced!
Management seemed to like us and we believe we will be back. I must tell you that the place reeks of class without being too stuffy. The food was excellent, the staff attentive and the management very positive without being forceful. This venue is located in the historic Military Building, which I'm told also is home to WBGO. We look forward to returning and wish them great success going forward.
