The Squeeze reunion tour has added a date at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville for Monday, August 6th. Tickets, which are being sold at pre-sale here, are a mere $35...compared to the $99 you'll have to shell out to be up front at The Beacon Theater in NYC.I've seen Squeeze a few times back in the day, and have also seen Glenn Tilbrook solo, and trust me on this one...a better time will be had in a club setting than a theatre.
This post gives me another chance to proclaim my love for the Starland Ballroom. Formerly the meat-market disco known as Hunka Bunka, Starland is easily one of the finest larger clubs I've ever seen shows in...and I've been in tons of these joints.
The ballroom layout with the stage on the wide side of the floor (as opposed to the narrow end like at Roseland) lends itself to allowing most of the crowd to have a closer vantage point. There are actual bars (as opposed to beer kiosks) on all sides of the main floor from where you can actually watch the show. They also offer pizza slices, which to me is a necessity at a club...there's nothing worse than fading toward the end of a show because of hunger, and trying to fill up on drinks or Red Bull just leads to drunktasticly and/or bug-eyed bad results. The sound is pretty great, and perhaps most remarkably, the staff is first-class.
The girl in the ticket booth, the door guys who check ID's, the bar staff, and most impressively, the floor bouncers...every employee I've ever had contact with there is friendly and reasonable. You know all the reasons why people hate shows at Webster Hall? The exact opposite is the rule at Starland. And since it's just minutes off the Parkway, it's really easy to drive to.
Most of the shows booked here lean toward bands you are likely to read about in Alternative Press or Kerrang!, but they often book surprisingly hip shows...I've seen Wilco, Secret Machines, X, Nada Surf, Fountains Of Wayne, Ryan Adams, and stellastarr* here, not to mention a Motorhead show that blew my wig off.
I have to agree with James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem when he sings, "New York I love you, but you're bringing me down"...especially when it comes to escalating ticket and parking prices. I thank my lucky stars I have a place like Starland to offer me a cheaper and more compfortable option now and again.
**UPDATE 5/7**
The presale is now sold-out...regular ticketing begins Friday, May 18th at Noon.
Squeeze - "Cool For Cats" mp3 buy
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