Unfortunately for Apollo Heights, most of the audience had come for one band and one band only: TV on the Radio. ![]() Completely unknown to me, I was pleasantly surprised by their surprisingly soulful set, featuring soaring Bowie-esque vocals over atmospheric backing grooves. While not exactly the most crowd-friendly opening set, ZZZZ was at least odd enough to warrant a second look the next time they play live.įollowing the brief post-set interlude, Apollo Heights took the stage. If you don’t believe me, just go listen to a third-rate ska band.Īfter a brief introduction, ZZZZ launched into a set of songs peppered with echoing klezmer sax riffs, spastic basslines, and some eerily detached vocals courtesy of the keyboard player. In my experience, reed players can either make or break a band-more often the latter than the former. However, it was the appearance of the saxophone player that truly caught my eye. Calling themselves ZZZZ, these local boys and girls were busily setting up a bank of keyboards next to the drum kit when I arrived. I arrived just in time to catch the first set by a local combo with a moderately odd sobriquet. ![]() Behind the stage, you can almost envision Screeching Weasel playing their infamous “naked show.” And if you were lucky enough to attend the sold-out performance of TV on the Radio last week, you can add that show to the future retellings of the Fireside legend. Over to the left of the lounge, you can see where such luminaries as Sewercap and the Vindictives cut class as teens. And once one falls in love with the scruffy, low-fidelity charm of the Fireside, it’s easy to see why people often reminisce about past shows there. It is here, not within the accursed confines of the Metro or the Double Door, that the Chicago punk scene was spawned in the early ’80s. However, when going to see great rock bands, nothing quite compares with the history and the ambiance of the Fireside. And, as a rule, the brash sound system gives everyone within its battered doors a headache that lingers for days. While the bathrooms are clean, there’s always a rather loud conference on human sexuality going on in one of the back stalls. The beer is always flat and warm the bartenders are always surly. Stranded out in the midst of the West Side jungle, the Fireside is almost inaccessible by public transportation, and it smells vaguely like a hobo encampment. The concert area is tiny, consisting of the thin sliver of floor in between the lanes and the wall. In person, it’s worse.Ī Chicago legend that is, by day, a beat-up Naugahyde nightmare of a bowling alley/seedy lounge straight out of the bowels of the ’70s, the Fireside transforms under the cover of night into an all-ages concert venue-successfully combining the short-comings of both types of venues into one massively improbable structure. You can check out her MySpace page or email her directly at firesidebowlproject(at)gmail(dot)com.On paper, the Fireside Bowl is a terrible venue. "I'm talking about the Fireside that had rad all ages shows from 1994-2004." She'll be creating an installation of posters, images and stories which will be going up in the spring and her eventual goal is to create a book and an online archive. "Keep in mind, I am not talking about the new lame Fireside," she elaborates. ![]() As part of her MFA thesis she's collecting stories, flyers, photos and anything else related to the Fireside. But before those old memories fade, Rebecca Rakstad wants to preserve them. So what happened? Well, it went back to being just a bowing alley. If you were under thirty, with lots of time on your hands but little money in your pockets, the Fireside was the ne plus ultra of Chicago nighttime adventure. Ultra-late hours and ultra-loud bands were the two prime ingredients in Brian Peterson's makeover of the vintage bowling alley. Some years before making a cameo appearance in The Break-Up, the Fireside was the kind of place that Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston wouldn't have been caught dead in. O Fireside, Where Went Thou? By Rob Christopher in Arts & Entertainment on 8:46PM
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