A waste of space on Van Duzer

We had high hopes going into last night's event at The Cup on Van Duzer street in Stapleton. The venue was hosting a night of music by some fine local talent. The line-up was decent, we read the place was renovated last year, recently a liquor license had finally been acquired (someone said on FB). So we went in with an open mind.

Sadly to say The Cup was a dour disappointment. This wouldn't be surprising except for the fact that they can do so much better given the space and financial investment, we guess, they put into into the place.
Where to start: well, the back room is nice enough. They have replaced the ratty curb-alert brand furniture with modest couches strategically placed just in front of the stage just in case, idk, you'd like to take a quick nap during the opener's performance.

Other improvements have been made. The space is well-insulated -- you can tell because there is no ceiling. But when we walked over to the new "bar" in the back it was untended.

Yeah, so just as Vessels are ending their set before the closing band Audiometry goes on the "bar" in the back of your establishment is empty. smart.

Apparently you need to order your beers in the front room where the high school stoners get their Tea-On.

This isn't just an inconvenience, it's detrimental to the mood in the back room. A functioning bar creates a social hub but also allows you to monetize the 20-something-captive-audience you have sitting in the back twiddling their iPhones. If you need some asshole blogger to tell you this you are probably more well-suited to sell DVDs in the Waldbaum's parking lot.

Sound. It was OK. Better than the karaoke-machine-esque sound system they have down the block but still, doesn't the owner run a recording studio (read it in the Advance, must be true).

There were no monitors, as far as we could tell, which means the musicians could barely hear themselves. Also, only vocals were piped through the PA which created a strange incongruity when heard with the delicate instrumentation.

Maybe the sound guy in the booth could help? Oh, there's no sound guy in the booth.

There are no windows.

This sounds like a low blow but isn't that wall the back of the building. What about the alley? Can we open the god damn door? It's fucking humid in here. I got swamp-ass and I've been sitting still for 45 minutes.

The beer. We are going to go ahead and make the assumption, based on empirical observation, that an employee was quite literally running down to the corner store to buy 12-packs of Corona. How about buying in bulk next time, it helps your profit margins. They ran out of Corona twice in the course of about 25 minutes.

No DJ. Yeah, so in between sets you'd ideally want to have some kind of music playing. Ya' know to keep the mood positive, the conversation flowing, and, remember, you need to sell those 12 Coronas you bought at the bodega down the block. That's like 10 bucks. You can't have that shit go to waste, now.

Finally, on the way out, around say 12:30ish, there were two teenage stoners sleeping on the couch. Not like, ya know, just resting. They were passed-the-fuck out. Was it past their bed time? This was sort of oddly predictable, however, and germane to this screed.

This isn't your shitty tween night, Cup. You had legitimate adult acts perform in the back room of your establishment. If you don't want to and/or can not cater to this demographic than fine, but don't try to. Just stick with open-mic poetry.

If you plan on holding events like this in the future, we strongly recommend you shape up or get the fuck out. The choice is yours. Perpetuating this nonsense is just embarrassing to all parties involved.