My first visit to the Austin Music Hall was last night (April 6th) for the BB King concert. The acoustics of the building were awful. I've had pretty bad allergies so my hearing was already jacked up a bit, but I couldn't understand anything. The mix sounded really muddy. It was really sad. No, I take that back. It was disgraceful. I've been to alot of shows in alot of places and there is no excuse for a place calling itself a music hall with such horrible acoustics. It wasn't sad. It was insulting and disgraceful.
Then we get to the seating. I was amazed. This place has been renovated? And we have $2 K-Mart folding chairs zip-tied together? I admit, I am a fat man. This is my responsibility. I buy 2 plane tickets because I know these things are closer together than any humans not intimately acquainted with each other should sit. I am thinking the Austin Music Hall renovators must also work for the airline industry. In case you aren't paying attention, that's not a compliment.
I had tickets in the balcony - really not a bad area - section C, Row 1 - middle of the row. That wasn't going to work, so my companion and I switched seats with the people at the end. This let me spread out into the aisle a bit. My companion still felt claustrophobic and spent the concert standing over to the side. Because of the poor seat quality and my fear the seat would collapse, I spent most of the show standing as well. It took about 15 minutes for my left leg to go to sleep when sitting. Not cool.
I'm glad I got to see BB King. The man is awesome, I wish the venue had been worthy of him.
Unless it's someone like BB King - a true legend - I won't be going back to this place. I'd rather drive to see a show somewhere else.
On the plus side - the employees I spoke with - bar staff, and ushers - were very pleasant. That's a good thing, right?
Pros: Nice employees
Cons: Everything else - acoustics, seating.
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