Best crowds I\'ve ever seen:
2. Butterfield 11/19/99 Read about it here
I know exactly what you mean about these party/no supervision/no rules shows. some of the best shows my band has ever played were at these wild frat parties in buffalo where we would either play in a basement or in a living room of a big house that was jam packed with ape-like drunk kids who were dancing/screaming/fighting. the energy at those types of shows cannot be duplicated.
5. Puppet House 2005, both shows.
I always hear about the puppethouse shows, and ive listened to some of them...is this place a bar, and where?
6. Camp Creek 7/27/01
Including festivals, was this the biggest crowd they\'ve ever played to?
Biggest crowds I\'ve ever seen (not counting festivals, per the rules):
1. Deuce CD release at Toad\'s, 5/23/02. To the best of my knowledge it is the only Toad\'s sellout. You couldn\'t move. We also did over $1,500 in merch that night, that has to be a record.
How many people does toad\'s fit, about?
2. Baker Quad 5/5/01 Outdoor 360 degree stage, about 15-20 deep for 270 degrees and 5 deep behind the stage. 500-700 people.
Where is Baker\'s Quad?
Getting thread back on track here, it\'s too good to sidetrack.
To catch up on inqueries:
-Puppet House is not a bar. It\'s a very small theater with removable seating whose principal function is puppet shows. The shows were BYOB.
-Baker Quad is the quad in front of Baker dorm at UMass, about 100 yards from Butterfield dorm.
-I think Toad\'s is 850-900, Ellis can confirm the number.
-I\'m changing the date on Deuce CD release, I knew that date didn\'t feel right
-Tobacco Road was an alltime classic venue and lives on in Breakfast infamy on the Dead But Not Forgotten Venues list alongside Callahan\'s, Hawk\'s Nest, Butterfield and others. We used to rent a bus when they played there and have everyone gather in East Haven and PARTY HARD on the bus the whole way down and back. The shows ran until absolutely whenever, 5am or later usually. I remember emerging into broad daylight from some shows that broke the 5 hour mark...no other club has pushed it like that since. The phrase "NO SLEEPING ONLY DRINKING!" came from these trips and as best I can remember this was the first ever Breakfast scene-ism. And Pec recalled a great show, 12/31/02...wild night for sure. That one should be on my list. I was at TR all night, it was packed and insane even before the post-Phish crowd rolled in. But management there got very bizarre at the last show in \'03 and they closed shortly after. For one, they blew a lot of money on an expensive new light rig but had no employee who knew how to run it and they wouldn\'t let us run it either, so the band just looked like crap all night with 10 grand worth of lights doing nothing. And more notoriously, they prohibited all taping and instead taped the show themselves and demanded $50 from the band to get the recording. OOF. They did a lot of great stuff for us, but they had it coming after that.
-I think the rules in the first post were meant to exclude festivals for
biggest crowd but not
best crowd. If your best crowd experience was at a festival we should know about it!
1. Deuce CD release at Toad\'s, 5/23/02.
deuce cd release @ toad\'s was 06/01/01, just fyi.
I knew that date didn\'t feel right. It\'s coming back to me now. It was just a couple of weeks after Baker Quad, and Baker Quad at the time it happened was the undisputed biggest show ever. Kids were fiending for another show after Baker Quad and this was the first chance. At Toad\'s, on top of an excellent hometown and CT crowd, Umass/Northampton sent about 300 kids and put the crowd into stratospheric size territory. School had just gotten out and Baker sent easily half the freakin dorm along with a big group from Butterfield and all of the associated friends from around New England also fresh out of school. Huge show.
