It’s a recipe for a fun night of people watching
My buddy Mitch and his brother Eric were born one year apart almost to the day. To celebrate, a bunch of us met up at Maxwell’s (1039 Washington St, Hoboken) for some drinks. This was a nice, chill atmosphere. As new people came in, conversations orbited around from music to the writings of Alistair Crowley and the teachings of Alan Watts. That is until the text message came.
One of the guys—I can’t remember who—got a text from a friend who was at Willie McBride’s (616 Grand St, Hoboken). The message simply read, “Tons of Bitches.” Now I know that sounds crass and all sorts of wrong, but we were a bunch of single guys with a few drinks in us on a Saturday night. To our ears, “Tons of Bitches” rang with the passion of a kamikaze battle cry. So off we went.
On the walk from Maxwell’s, Eric and I pulled away from the rest of the pack. We were still knee deep in philosophical ponderings and this seemed to add steam to our walking. We arrived at Willies McBride’s a full five minutes or so ahead of everyone else. At this point I was shocked at a change in bar policy. Willie McBride’s is split into two distinctly different rooms. The front is a bar/restaurant and the back is a place for live music.
It used to be that you could come here to eat dinner, have a few drinks and/or catch a game without the burden of paying a cover charge. If you decided to move to the back room to see a band, you understandably would be expected to pay. However, tonight as we walked thru the front door, we were asked for the outrageous amount $10.00. It was bad enough that we had to pay to get into what is essentially a sports bar, but $10.00?
So what was the attraction that justified this unusually high cover? Why it was a Bon Jovi tribute band playing in the back room. Having paid, we figured it would be best to check them out. These guys looked as though they were straight outta 1985 and yeah they sounded pretty good. Still, most of my friends know about my utter distain for tribute bands. From a musician’s point of view, this is a phenomenon that takes away from the exposure of original music.
More confusing is why a club owner would hire these guys when a DJ could do the job cheaper and—in many cases—better. It came clear to me that the crowd of glass dropping, gut puking kids barely even noticed the band was there. For example; two drunken floosies were pulled on stage to dance with the band. Instead they just stood there and talked to each other. I thought this was strange until I saw it happen a second and third time.
I deduced that, due to the position of the speakers, it was quieter and therefore easier to talk up on the stage about this hot guy or that skank or whatever other gossip. Another place to congregate was outside of the bathrooms located up a flight of beer soaked and slippery stairs. I nearly fell once or twice trying to avoid the stumbling drunks and chunky mystery puddles. One poor guy didn’t fare as well. I heard him tell a friend, “Some fucker just puked on me in the bathroom.”
Did this deter him from the party? No way. A simple sink rinse and it was back to the bar and hitting on unsuspecting girls not aware of his recent run in. I found my way back to the front bar for a couple of pints of Guinness and eavesdropping. As much as I wanted to butt my way into a few of the more interesting exchanges, I decided the role of wallflower was more fun tonight.
For a guy like me who absorbs the world around—no matter how insane or inane—this indeed was a fun night. I found myself fully entertained by both my new group of friends and the far-drunker-than-me strangers.
See Also:
Willie McBride’s
Maxwell’s
