Review - The Vista 10-17-07 rough

A rough draft of a review of The Vista I was working on Wednesday night before, during, and after the show...

Imagining a Legend

I had never been to The Vista before re-opening. I had heard the tales, of course, the legends of former glory from Humboldt scene giants speaking of The Vista and some of the epic shows they used to have. In my mind I pictured a dark club with a stage in the back and a bar lit up on the side. Rockers filling the dance space wearing Docs and band t-shirts, milling about outside smoking cigarettes and drinking 40s of PBR. A punk rock paradise. Something more fitting in San Francisco, perhaps.

So I was at the re-opening show. I wanted to see the rumors for myself, to get some experience at The Vista for myself, to come out of the dark about this place. We get to the building, looking in the front door I can see it looks, for the most part, like a restaurant. A bar curls around and sea-oriented objects adorn the walls. I follow my more experienced friend to the music space by walking toward the kitchen and then into a wide hallway. A long window exposes dishwashers still cleaning the day's dirty wares. The band is set up at the end of this hallway in front of a window facing the bay. The ceiling is low, and the patrons of the venue stand around and talk in front of the band who are setting up. I can hear voices from outside, there's a door halfway through the room that opens into an "outdoor" area: a wood floored and walled deck with chicken wire roofing. The overheard fluorescents are turned off and two colored bulbs of blue and red provide the light and ambiance for the room. This isn't what I pictured.

Now I know that my report could cast a somewhat dismal light compared to my imagined beacon of rock 'n roll, but there's an important distinction between the two: the white hallway of The Vista is real. My flattering dreams aren't. The Vista has been booking way more shows than it can handle lately, and good shows too. There's always a local act on the bill and the price is usually $5 or less. The people are friendly unless you cause trouble, but the scene there is uneasy and unestablished. It's young. But full of old E-town scensters who remember the way things used to be. Given time, and a little help, The Vista will soon be once again the stuff of legend, and this time I'm going to get to be part of that.

Preliminary Planning - Local Interviews

Although I don't have a good mic yet, I know where I can get the equipment around here to conduct an interview and actually record it with some quality. So I'm currently planning out my own local interviews to start to get a handle on this thing. Instead of focusing on The Placebo (my first inclination, obviously) I'd like to get a better, more well-rounded picture of the all-ages scene in Humboldt. And really, I want to talk about the thing in the scene that I feel gave me the most joy (and maybe the most pain too, but in very personal ways). This is not The Placebo, but rather The Professional Superheroes. I plan to connect them to a good number of the local all-ages venues and the all-ages scene in general. To cover this story I plan to interview them (or at least Russ, maybe Devon and Oliver), people from The Placebo (Willoughby, Julie, Dao, Mike, Eva, etc.), and Tina from Out of the Sun. To round out the all-ages scene around here I plan to talk to someone pretty unrelated... John who books at The Vista and lives at The Firehouse, just to do a bit more coverage on house shows and for-profit venues.

I also started to write a rough piece about The Pro Heroes when I was bored in history...

"When it comes to the all-ages experience, it's first easiest to talk about my won experience. And when it comes to my own experience, it's first easiest to talk about The Placebo, but that wouldn't be really giving the whole picture, a picture talking about The Professional Superheroes would more easily provide. The Professional Superheroes (or Pro Heroes for short) were an indie rock cover group that I palled around with. Through the band i had experienc ewith many of the all-ages venues in the area, as well as somewhat playing without a tradtional venue. Most of he group's shows were all-ages, as most of its fans were under 21. They played the come-back show for Out of the Sun. They played Thee Parkside, which spends most of it's time being a 21+ bar. They played people's birthday parties. They played out on the street at Arts! Alive with a generator. And even removing the young fanbase, most of the members were models of the people passionate about the all-ages scene..."

Not much, I know, but perhaps to give a better idea why I'll focus on telling that story to tell the story of Humboldt all-ages music.