Review: Pinebender and Dianogah at The Highdive
On Saturday night, The Highdive hosted two excellent Chicago bands: Pinebender and Dianogah. Both have been making music for over decade and this weekend’s show highlighted this fact — each band put on an excellent show. It also helped that the sound in The Highdive was stellar both in the audience and up on stage (as pointed out by Chris from Pinebender many, many times while they played). People trickled in during Pinebender’s set until there was a modest crowd by the start of Dianogah.
Click the jump to read about Dianogah’s set.
While waiting for Dianogah to get set up, I wondered: why wasn’t this show as completely packed as I remember similar shows being back in the day? But then it occurred to me that I also was excited that this was an early show and I began to worry that I was starting to act like an old man reminiscing about the “good old days,” so I decided to be happy with the modest turn out and just enjoy the show. And enjoy the show I did.
Photos by David Cubberly
9 comments
http://openid.aol.com/happyinawarmgun
lack of promotion is killing the local scene. I don’t think I saw a single poster for this show anywhere on campus. I’m used to the awful promotion from star course and courtyard cafe, but its sad to see it spreading to independently-owned venues.
Call up the city and ask them to find some places where people CAN put up fliers. It’s ludicrous to think that there are NO flier kiosks ANYWHERE except the one on the quad.
That said, I don’t think a poster would have helped this show. And that’s damn unfortunate.
Dave
I’d have to agree with Seth - it’s not the amount of posters that will help get people interested in seeing shows. I’m remember back in the day I saw Pele play at Highdive, (maybe with Hey Mercedes?) and the place was jam packed. (Doing a little research - it may have been this show (but I thought it was earlier than this) http://www.openingbands.com/intelligencereport/attendance.race?EventID=162) The people that went to that show didn’t go because of a poster or because they were supporting local music - they went because it was a damn good show.
Maybe collective musical tastes change? Or maybe the idea of “local” music (or “national-local”) is a lost cause? But why is it that the damn good shows now are weakly attended? Is it really that my definition of what a damn good show is that strange?
I say blame mp3s!! (kidding…)
Dave
bc
I’ll agree that it was a damn good show but I do believe that promotion would have helped. I had a good time but if we’re looking for more people then I can think of 5 friends who in the past few days when told about the show replied, “Shit, I didn’t even know they were playing.”
That said, whether a flyer or some other form of promotion is needed… well, something is. I guess next time we can join together and go through our collective mailing lists and spread the word.
Posters don’t make people interested in shows they let people know that there are shows. Good design is something too but I’d like to stick to the basics. If there is any show that looks to be damn good then people should first be aware of them. Flyers or word of mouth seem to help.
tim
I’d like to have seen fliers for the show too, if only because Dianogah fliers are always awesome (Jay’s day job & all). I knew of the show only because someone told me about it though. Ended up being too sick to go, but left the new album on repeat most of the day to make up for it.
Doubt that’s the only reason for low attendance though, the same flier laws were around when Dianogah were still a townie band and filling venues just fine. Maybe they’re too “mid-to-late 90’s midwest indie” for today’s campus critters, or maybe they’d just rather cruise youtube than pay $7, or whatever, no idea. It’s definitely a different climate than it was then, whatever the cause.
[Insert standard old man rant here: “in my day, we used to care about music (and dollar pints),” etc, etc.]
Ryan Martin
Counterculture is defined by designer jeans and maybe an art history degree. My peers would rather gyrate to Peaches somewhere on Busey rather than see amazing bands they know nothing about.
Who is to blame? Urban Outfitters.
Also, Nate Kinsella has more presence than 1,000 hipsters, so I guess I didn’t notice the lack of people at the show.
Yup,
Ryan Martin
elle
As someone who regularly hangs flyers on campus (and attempts to elsewhere), the only success I’ve found is to go into individual campus buildings and post on the bulletin boards inside. Other than that, it’s the pylon on the quad and asking businesses if you can post in their window (which, if you’re posting for the Canopy, is impossible at Zorba’s, just a word of warning).
Cassie
You know, I went to a Dianogah show at the Highdive in 2000 and there were about 20 people there. And then we probably had this exact discussion on Openingbands. Nice to know that some things never change, including what things are perceived as “killing the scene”. :)
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