#Fireside bowl logo tv#

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. On paper, the Fireside Bowl is a terrible venue.

Fireside bowl logo