The Charlottesville Pavilion announced their season lineup yesterday, and it’s a humdinger. Scheduled acts include Lyle Lovett, Willie Nelson, Wynton Marsalis, Merle Haggard, Bruce Hornsby, The Neville Brothers, Dr. John and James Brown, among others. Jane Dunlap Norris has the story in today’s Progress.
They also announced the year’s Fridays After 5 lineup. It looks very much like past year’s lineups, though I’m particularly happy to see the Hacks opening up the season and the inclusion of Thompson D’earth and Agents of Good Roots.
If the pavillion weren’t so hideous-looking I might actually go see some of these performers.
well, i heard during the offseason, they use it to catch lobsters?
The sound is going to be hard to fix as long as they keep the downward-sloping fabric behind the audience. That changes it from a trumpet to the indsie of a drum. But hey, U. Hall will be demolished soon, so I guess Cville needs the absurdly bad acoustics. Doesn’t it make you want to flee when you get under that thing at the tunes are rumbling?
Anyone know if the Friday’s After Five schedule is complete? The schedule posted ( http://www.fridaysafter5.com/fridays.asp ) only runs through June 30. Mighty short season. I certainly remember years in which FAF ran through October. Sure, I’m glad that they have managed to keep the event admission-free; but that is a dramatically shortened schedule, if that’s all there is.
I’m not going to be attending any more concerts at the Pavilion until they fix the sound quality within the pavilion. I don’t know if it *can* be fixed or if the acoustics are fine, but require competent sound engineers when non-acoustic shows are playing.
One of my favorite bands is playing this next month, but I’m not going to shell out fifty bucks for two tickets. I just can’t abide by muddy sound, especially in a new venue. I’ll wait until the band tours again and plays the 930 Club.
There’s an old local legend about James Brown performing in Charlottesville, that goes something along the lines of:
In the late 1970’s one of the frat houses on fraternity row had thrown so many massive raging parties that there was literally a giant hole in the floor in the middle of the main hall of the building. They just left it there for most of the year, until finally the University forced them to fix it and gave them some money with which to hire contractors and construction workers to repair the damage. They took the money and, instead of repairing the hole, booked the James Brown band to play at their frat house.
Anyone else heard this, or a variaiton thereof? Did it actually happen? How many of the details of the story did i manage to totally screw up?
Well tickets went on sale to most of the announced shows today. $68 for tickets to see Dr. John and the Neville Brothers? $87 for the best seats to catch James Brown? Yeah, nothing says “World Class City” like paying $200 to take your wife to a show where you’ll get truly crappy acoustics and have the honor of standing in line for 20 minutes to fight for a porta potty. And let’s not forget the premium Budweiser-brand beverages.
Compare this venue to places like Wolf Trap, and the pricing here is waaaaaaaaaaaay out of line. I think they are seriously overestimating the willingness of locals to pay ridiculous amounts of money to see shows in a substandard venue. Or they’re just greedy. Probably both. I can see Bonnie Raitt and Keb’ Mo’ at Wolf Trap for $42 per ticket – with awesome sound and great facilities. They want that price here just to see Merle Haggard.
I guess those inaugural season ticket prices were just a tease. This is most disappointing. Seems they have a long way to go to prove that this is a decent venue, and not just a serious waste of concrete and canvas – not to mention a sad loss of green space.