This thread has gotten lame as shit. If you are doing something wrong and get kicked out then you deserved it, PERIOD.
Actually I think this is one of the better threads I\'ve seen in a long time. A lot of articulate and passionate posts. And props to everyone honest enough to say that this venue may alter their New Year\'s plans.
I think the bigger issue isn\'t whether or not the few people who got kicked out deserved it. Rather, the issue is how does the venue security make everyone in general feel, and how is the sound? Many people posting here were made to feel uncomfortable even though they weren\'t breaking any rules. That, to me, is a huge problem. The security at The Webster cruises around the entire show walking up next to everyone and looking them up and down to a nearly unprecendented extent. It\'s not fun. I\'m personally at sketch factor 0 these days, and I felt like I was being watched to make sure I was dancing properly. That\'s not fair and not fun. Security usually isn\'t on my mind at all since I don\'t do anything illegal, so for them to establish such a presence in my mind while all my focus was on the show means that they really must have been doing too much.
The sound is another thing altogether. It\'s a couple notches better than the Dying Room in Providence... which had the worst sound of all time. ChrisF is right that earplugs usually improve one\'s audio experience of the show, but not even earplugs can totally pull this place\'s sound out of the mud. Do you know why The Webster books almost exclusively hardcore and metal bands, with the occasional jamband sprinkled in? One reason has to be because no band with any intricacy in their sound would touch this place with a 10 foot pole. When it comes to cooking up sound Dobs is a gourmet chef, but you can\'t ask him to make filet mignon out of Spam.
The sound and the security at this venue are in the same boat; they are what they are and they will never be any better. We\'ve been going here long enough to know what we are signing up for.
I think the band is in a tough spot here. Availability, capacity, and proximity issues make The Webster a must-have room for a rock band coming out of Connecticut. The band knows that a lot of the fans aren\'t too keen on the place, but there just aren\'t any other rooms this size this close to New Haven besides Toad\'s, and they\'ve played Toad\'s 29 times so they\'re getting what they can out of that room. In a different way, the band kind of has to "suck it up" the same way we do.
In my own experience, the Webster overall hasn\'t been nearly bad enough to make me not want to go to a Breakfast show there. The Dying Room (that\'s what I call the Living Room in Providence) is the only venue that was ever bad enough to make me say "I won\'t see the Breakfast because of that venue." The Webster isn\'t nearly as bad as that place. I hope everyone will choose to deal with the Webster\'s flaws since the band kinda has to play there right now.
