WARNING
DO NOT BUY SEATS AT THE CENTER TABLES WITHIN FOUR SEATS OF THE STAGE.
THESE ARE VIRTUALLY UNUSABLE SEATS AND YOU WON’T HEAR ANYTHING EXCEPT THE AMPLIFIER DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF YOU.
The Good;
John Mayall was spot on playing the great songs that established the British Blues. Caroline Wonderland demonstrated her style that has won her so much attention…if I could have heard her (I had to keep leaving my seat to go to the back of the room to hear anything).
The Bad;
Sound system set up and design; please note, the quality wasn’t bad, when you could hear it, but the placement of the speaker arrays was so fundamentally flawed it boggles the mind. A junior high school AV team knows better than this.
The venue insist on selling seat at tables pushed up to the stage…this could be good under the right circumstances but they’ve completely blown this and made it not only a bad situation but a tortuous one.
The Line arrays left and right are wide and there is no side fills on stage leaving an incredible void in the sound for the front tables, and this is a gross understatement (well, there were some small JBL’s on stage, but weren’t in use…why? God only knows).
The second issue is a backline that is farther forward than it needs to be.
Sure, if you buy seats right up front, prepare to have amps blaring in your face but this is so extreme you’re relegated to have only whatever you’re in front of drilled into your head…in our case bass.
Side fills on stage and small line arrays overhead have become standard in venues like this that put the audience pretty much on stage…and these augmentations are not expensive; they’re just there to fill in the holes. Why they haven’t done this? Once again; God only knows.
Until this venue addresses this gross oversight and announces to the public they’ve improved their sound system…I would stay away.