In going to see this show, I learned about a little club I didn't even know existed just twenty short minutes from my house. Howard's Club H is smack in the middle of this area's college town – Bowling Green, OH. Right under my nose, it has been this little dingy, hole in the wall. (Don't even get me started on what kind of social diseases must be crawling all over the bathroom.) But somewhere beneath the grime and the gloom seems to be the perfect venue for the music I was about to hear.
I arrived about twenty minutes before the show started. As I mentioned I had never been to this club before, let alone knew it was even there, but I expected it would be a mostly college crowd coming out to hear the hard and driving sounds of these grunge and emo-punk groups.
Around 10:30, the first act, The Perfect Addiction, took the stage. Self described as an Ohio Christian grunge band, they quickly had the rather small college crowd drawn into their loud and driving music. My first thoughts had been that the small crowd would detract from the style of music, but I was wrong. Though it was intimate, it was charged and enthusiastic about the show.
At its heart, the music is powerful and strong, but the sound in the small club wasn't nearly what it could be, and it distracted from the quality. I would say a good part of the problem was the large, partially empty brick room. Not even close to an ideal environment for good sound, but that wasn't the entire problem. The sound itself was just off, almost painfully so, which was a real unfortunate disservice to the band. As I said, at its heart the music was good, solid, and delivered well; it was a shame to have technical issues mess with the delivery.
They announced early in the show that it was their drummer's first performance with the band. Had it not been mentioned, I certainly wouldn't have guessed. He was unquestionably in his home element, not missing a single beat.
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