The Basement

This place can be a great venue really! If your in the pit section which is tiny… pretty much all the other sections of the place is hard to see if its a packed night, and since i only holds 300 it can fill up quick. The first time i went here was about 3 years ago saw chance the rapper, i was in the little pit area close had a great view. Second time saw sold out walk the moon last year, had to stand near the back and couldnt see a thing. Its not a bad place just make sure to get there early enough to be near the front.

The sound wasn’t terrible, as some reviewers have suggested. That said, this venue is terrible! It has the worst layout! Don’t plan on getting a glimpse of the band unless you get there early and stay up front. It was way to crowded and a bite to move around up front near the stage.
The promo company that runs gigs in this city seems pretty bad. They book a show for a rather large venue and then the show gets moved to this shit hole because of lack of sales. Haha, amatuers. The promo company person I tried to show my ticket to, was rude. I’ve never used an eticket thing from ticketfucker, and she was clueless how to help me and suggested I go buy another ticket, though another guy was helpful
They need 4 bartenders not 2! The wait for drinks is unexcusable.
I would say this is one of 3 terrible venues I will never go to again. The others being, the Grog Shop in Cleveland (horrible sound every time I’ve been there) and The Empty Bottle in Chicago (horrible sound and terrible layout)

My night at The Basement was pretty brief — I got there just in time to run to the bar and then stand on the side of the stage to watch the headlining act. I wasn’t sure why more people weren’t standing where I was, we were only about 6 feet away from the band and had a perfect view.
I accidentally bypassed Mr. Ticket Taker and Mr. Wristband because of the crowd consuming them and the open lane to their right but responsibly backtracked — I’ve got nothing to hide! Drink prices were more fair than I expected, because if you’ve ever been to any of the larger PromoWest venues, you know it’s going to cost the same price as a six-​pack for one beer, albeit a large beer.
It was a large place but there was only so much real estate to see the band because of the long, narrow setup and giant pillars surrounding the stage, so I have no idea what people in the back and by the bar did except stare at their feet and imagine the band in front of them.
It was exactly what I expected (it’s called The Basement) and I’d be back to see some more up-​and-​comers.
The one negative that stands out is they need at least one more Pay and Park station in the lot behind the arena. The parking lot was probably ¼ full and there was still a long line at the machine. It was only three bucks so it beat doing the parking garage across the street but it was cold dang it and we didn’t want to wait in a line because those dumb machines are dumb slow! (I’m bitter because of years of Pay and Display at OSU).

small and grimey, its a great spot because the staff is super nice and its got a little grit. I am in a band and have played here twice, and they have been really accommodating each time. just remember if you are there to see a show bring some earplugs!

I’ve only been to the Basement once, but I really did enjoy it.
It started out interesting because I was seeing Freelance Whales, while Marylin Manson was playing next door at the LC, and some of his fans were getting confused and getting into our line. I was like LOL guys you’re DEFINITELY in the wrong place. So, maybe Promowest could improve its line distinction a bit.
Buy anyways, the Basement was great for an intimate show. Hopefully you get in the pit or just outside of it or it would not be a good view at all though.
It’s a great atmosphere for an indie-​ish show.

So. When you go to a concert, do you want decent sound or a decent view?
No no, can’t have both. You can only choose one. Go.
Yes, I am serious. Ok, you want to flip a coin? Aaaand tonight you get… view. Next time go with sound. Maybe it’ll make a complete experience.
As many have described: low ceilings, narrow hallway layout, pit in front of the stage. You can get a nice view anywhere down there, along the railings, or up the stairs between the pit and the bar. But bring your earplugs. And your warble-​to-​lyrics translator. And it doesn’t hurt to know the band’s music well enough to know what it’s supposed to sound like.
On my more recent visit, I did not. New stuff to me (thanks to Sara C. of the ³⁄₂₀ review). We had that fabulous view, but I spent the next day watching YouTube videos to hear what I missed. «Oh,» I thought to myself, «I would have really liked them.»
The previous time I was at this venue, I spent more time wandering and even made it to the back of the hall. The sound is much clearer back there, but trying to see the band is like trying to keep your eye on one pinpoint of color in a kaleidoscope. Hearing the show from there might even be a social experience, but this is the kind of setup you go into for your friend’s local band and a $ 5 cover. Not a nationally touring act you just spent exorbitant Ticketmaster fees on.
So wait, you’re telling me I *can* both see and hear a band at a concert? Well, blimey. Guess you’ve been someplace other than the Basement.

A basement it is!
It feels like you’re in someone’s very large garage — with a bar. Cement floors. No windows. Basic bar stools. But the sound is legit.
If you’re not in the mini-​pit at the front of the stage, chances are you can’t see much of the band. But the cool thing is how close and intimate you are with whomever is playing. You definitely don’t get that at all venues and it was a really cool change of pace and opportunity to get a full «experience» with whomever you came to see play.
When it comes to booze, you have a few options. If you prefer draft beer, your choices are slim-​to-​none. And by slim, I mean you have Bud Light. Your bottle selection is slightly better. They only had two IPAs. As expected, beer comes at a high price. About 6 bucks a bottle for crafts & imports. Eeek.
The layout is long and narrow so in theory, if you didn’t want to listen to the entire concert (or the opening bands) you can head to the far back of the venue to perch at the bar or in the corner to chat.
It really got dicey in the ladies restroom though. To be honest, I didn’t expect much from a concert venue’s bathroom, but it was rank. And the «entertainment» written on all of the walls is well, entertaining to say the least.
Given the location of The Basement, its size, and its sound, its clear why they get so many great acts in there! But seriously, it felt like I paid $ 25 to watch a band play in a big garage.

I went to this place to see the Menzingers concert a few weeks back. The environment was rather fitting to a punk show and reminded me of a divey sort of bar more or less. There were plenty of places to linger, sit, and of course a decent pit area to mosh and partake of ruffian style antics.
The bar was a bit lacking though. It had the sort of selection I would expect at a ball game and the prices were pretty bad. The concept of the intimate bar environment as a show venue is great, but the implementation of the actual bar portion of it could use some work. On a positive note though the bar staff was courteous and gave decent enough customer service.

My ears are still recovering from the show last night (The Kopecky Family and Milo Greene), and I’m still waffling over whether I want to go back for more shows. Parking can be a bit of a bother when other events are also happening in the Arena District (Blue Jackets game last night). I toyed with the idea of parking up in Victorian Village and walking in, but the cold wind convinced me otherwise.
As a short person, I try to avoid standing room only venues since it really isn’t much fun not being able to see and getting knocked into all night. The Basement is not really a bad venue in that sense. We ended up grabbing a spot right at the railing, which was great since we could see over the audience and taller people could still see over us. Unfortunately, this spot was also right next to the left speaker stack, hence the ringing in my ears presently. Still, it was a good view — definitely saw sweat droplets being flung across the stage. If we had gotten there any later, I think the experience wouldn’t have been as good since we’d be further back in the crowd. As others have noted, the layout is long and narrow — swapping the stage and bar in the layout would make slightly more sense, but maybe it just wasn’t feasible.
I didn’t partake of the bar or the restroom facilities, so no comments on that. I guess I probably would come back here to see another show, but definitely need to make sure I grab some of that prime railing space. And also bring some ear protection.
Also, you can explore the inside of this venue using street-​view on Google maps!

Went here to see Erica Blinn open for Black Box Revelation. For a small place, it’s pretty decent. Yeah, the area by the stage is small. But you can see and hear well from the bar, and there are couches along one wall to relax. The service was good, though the beer selection is meh. The place is what it is: a small bar/​music venue.

I really like the small intimate stage area of the basement. I saw one of my favorite acts here a couple of weeks ago and I was literally 20 feet from the band. That is something you don’t get to experience most other places.
However, I felt like the layout is a bit odd. There is a lot of room around the bar area, but then everyone has to squeeze in to be by the stage. Maybe the act I saw was too large for the venue, it seemed like if you weren’t there to get a good spot early on, you would be far away, because the set up is long and narrow.
Overall, a neat experience to be so close to someone I am a big fan of, but the layout just seems odd.

The «Meh. I’ve experienced better» description for the two-​star barometer is EXACTLY how I feel about The Basement.
I saw one of my favorite folksy singer/​songwriter acts here, and maybe he just wasn’t suited to this venue, but the layout of this place makes no sense to me at all. The square footage says this place should be able to accommodate better access to the sound and stage, but alas, it does not.
The bar is ample, there are long, soft, worn-​in couches for sitting, but a ton of dead space is created away from the stage. The stage and little audience pit are all smashed into a corner. If you want to see your fav band, be prepared to have to push against the crowd and stand all night long. It just seems so unnecessary. Better floor planning would have gone a long way. I don’t mind leaving my comfort at the door when there simply aren’t alternatives for the setup, but this was not one of those places.
Maybe I’m a pampered snob, but it was really difficult to manage my bag, coat, and all that standing. No coat check. First world problems, I know, but still.
I saw the same artist in a comparably-​sized venue in Akron (Musica, for those who might know), and that space had several small tables with plenty of seating. There wasn’t a bad place to sit/​stand in the entire place, and my girlfriends and I could easily sip our vino and swoon while our singer crooned. There was even space for thrashing around, if the genre had required such. In The Basement, if you want to let your legs and knees rest, you’ll be stuck along the wall on a bench looking at butts all night.

So, I’m not really sure why bands (and fairly well-​known ones at that) who actually care what they sound like live, agree to play at The Basement, considering the acoustics make the artists sound like they are playing underwater with a mouthful of gravel and a clothespin on their nose.
This is, hands down, the worst venue I’ve ever been to for a concert experience. The stage is impossible to see from anywhere in the bar if you’re standing further than 5 feet from the lead singer. This rule also applies to the sound — it gets more muffled and warped with each footstep away from the stage. Hard to believe this is the case, since the ceiling is about 7 feet high and the entire place is about as wide as a ’57 Buick. But the sound still, incredibly, gets swallowed up like a black hole. You could probably get better acoustics by sitting at home and listening to a 45 on a Fisher Price kids turntable.
HOWEVER! If you don’t care about the band, this is a perfectly acceptable place to spend an evening. You won’t be disturbed by the band if you sit in the back near the bar on the comfy couch and wish to have an in-​depth conversation with your drinking buddy. The sound doesn’t travel further than 20 feet from the stage, so you can have a live music experience without having to scream. The bartenders are extremely friendly and efficient. Drink prices are a bit dumb, but not outrageous. The bathrooms are shockingly clean. The décor is suitably grungy without the ick factor of, say, the Newport.
Even if a show is listed as «sold out» here, there is PLENTY of room by the bar. In fact, I think the owners should have made the stage area much bigger at the expense of some of the room around the bar and restrooms — The Basement is essentially a large bar with a stage area in the corner by the door.
Overall, don’t go in here expecting to actually see or hear the band you paid $ 15 (plus Ticketmaster fees) to see and, you know, hear. But, if you accept that going in, and the fact that you’ll have plenty of room to drown your sorrows while wishing your band was booked at the Newport instead, you’ll likely end up enjoying the experience.

This place is really trying too hard. Super poor layout (can’t see stage from anywhere except right in front of the stage), dark, damp, and feeling like an idea that someone tacked on at the end when they realized there was a sub-​floor in some real estate they purchased (which does seem to be the case).
The sound in there is mixed and vocals are almost impossible to hear (or at least with the specific sound guy from that night).
If The Basement was built on no budget as Aaron A. says, I don’t really see that as an excuse. Why didn’t Promowest put money into it like they should have? They are certainly making money off it now. Seems kludged together.
Seems to be a vision of what CBGB’s was by people who never have been to NYC or CBGBs.

I went to see UH HUH HER small electric/​rock group from Cali, I had never been here nor had I heard of it until a few weeks ago. I was very pleased with the bar and the band. It was small but comfy and the servers where nice and I didn’t have to wait too long for another drink. The price was decent and it was pretty much everything I expected.
Parking was free (luckly nothing was going on that night) and close to bar.
I would definatly go see a show there again.

Phantogram + The Antlers on 4/16/10…truly a beautiful show.
Parking is easy, there was no line, and the acoustics were actually stellar for such a small place.
It is intersting to me that so many people find this place contrived — I personally find it to be exactly what it tries to be, a dingy basement/​bar venue much akin to the Shelter in Detroit. Even the hockey sports on the TVs on the bar reminded me of the Shelter… or perhaps the Magic Stick.
One star off for admittedly overselling the show — the place was jammed packed and had it been summer I imagine it would’ve been kind of gross… and honestly, if there would’ve been a fire or something I’m rather certain we’d all have died. Then again, I really can’t blame them for overselling the the show — it was amazing and I STRONGLY suggest picking up both The Antlers’ Hospice and Phantogram’s Eyelid Moves.

I can just imagine the planning meetings for this place:
«Let’s make a small venue with hole in the wall décor to get that gritty bowery street feel and fill it with kids that come out for indie rock.»
Everything about the basement is very calculated. I am not even sure that the graffiti in the bathrooms is real. The huge give away is the lack of bad smells, urine, and rats. That’s the bowery I know from my teen years in NYC.
That said, I’m not sure I really care. It is very hard to write an unbiased review of a venue without taking the band into account.
Although in this case I can impartially compare the basement to the indoor LC since I saw the same band there in the last few months.
The Whigs. Great band, sort of a southern nirvana sound, like someone took kurt cobain and wrapped him up in a chicken waffle with lots of syrup.
Sweet.
Despite the blatant corporate strategy to be anti-​corporate. I would prefer to see a band at the basement over the LC. The drink prices are lower and they have more bottled imports and NO super sized Bud on tap. The acoustics are great for such low ceilings and it is very intimitate yet not crammed.
My friends bought two of the last three tickets so the place was pretty much full to capacity but did not feel crowded.
So come to the basement to see a great show but don’t expect an authentic underground experience.
Just listen and drink.

Okay, Basement, sometimes you have shows that don’t seem to ever show up elsewhere. I can’t deny that. And you’re roomy. I can’t deny that. But are you a cool venue? Eh…
Sometimes it seems like this place wants to very much make you think it’s some bar carved out of a neighborhood basement and run by the hip underground. Dark, plastered in fliers, stencil-​graffiti logos– classy. Except none of it is even borderline genuine: you’re at the LC Pavilion, another in the long, ever-​growing line of corporation-​named performance spaces that take the joy of a musical performance and accent it with all the time-​honored business practices of baseball stadiums.
I’ve enjoyed a show at the Basement, so I can’t write it off entirely. In the end a space is a space is a space and what really matters, or what really should matter, is the quality of talent performing. In that light the Basement succeeds in one thing: not separating the crowd from the performer (s). The stage is low and close to the dance floor– intimate.
I’ll be back, Basement– if you ever get in another act I’d want to see.

Being an avid concert-​goer with an aversion to corporate venues like the one this tiny little club is adjacent to (Lifestyles Communities Pavilion, that is), I spent the better part of two years avoiding this place like the clap. It was easy for a while, but when the Short North stronghold for indie rock known as Little Brother’s folded over a year ago, The Basement quickly became the go-​to smallish venue for indie bands passing through the Columbus area while touring the midwest. After seeing a handful of punk/​emo shows here, The Basement gets my vote as a more-​than-​decent hole in the wall rock club.
To be blunt, the décor here is cheeky at best. In an attempt to perpetuate the feeling that you’re witnessing a show in a genuine rock ‘n roll basement (a la «That 70’s Show», perhaps) the walls that lead back to the merch area are lined with shabby couches that offer the perfect respite from the often chaotic scene that’s unfolding near the stage. The old-​school TV’s behind the bar the serve as ad-​hoc closed circuit monitors to watch the action you’re missing while you wait in line for a drink are a nice touch.
Although it’s fair to say that the service usually depends on how crowded and of age the show is, my two cents is that it’s definitely slower than average. This is a rock club, of course, so expect to get your face ripped off when it comes to drink prices. The entire Promowest chain that owns The Basement is sponsored by Budweiser, which means Miller products are nowhere to be found. The import and liquor selection is predictable and overpriced, but they do have $ 1 cans of Natural Light if you’re in the mood for reliving your 19^th birthday all over again.
One thing The Basement that should elicit rave reviews from even an amateur concert-​goer is the sound system here. Unlike The Newport, which has eardrum-​splitting low end and almost no high end whatsoever, the sound techs here get it right almost every time. I’ve seen some heinously loud and heavy bands here in my days, and I am consistently impressed by how clear everything sounds. A thrash band I saw here that is known for it’s face melting guitar solos over a bed of lumbering bass and down-​tuned power chord crunch sounded almost like they did on their album. Hell, I might even go so far as to say they sounded better.
The support beams that prop up the venue upstairs can cause visibility issues at times, but weaseling your way to the front for a better view is rarely an issue here. Like I said, The Basement is mostly for smaller bands that have yet to get their big break as MTV reality series background music, so it’s usually unheard of for there to be more than 30 people in the audience on any given night. Speaking of the audience, expect to be flanked on all sides by suburban Myspace xSceneCorex kids that take their anger and disdain for their cushy living situation out on their fellow brethren at crowded punk shows here. I’m the kind of person that can handle that sort of thing, but that’s only because that was more or less my own reality all but 5 or 6 years ago. Regardless, The Basement is an enjoyable place meet the posse for a round of beers and a night of music from a band on the rise.

The Basement is part of the PromoWest Live series of venues, this particular venue being the lowest on the totem pole. It’s not a bad place by any means, in fact it is quite nice with plenty of room to move around, a decent bar, and it never feels stuffy. My main beef with The Basement is that it tries really hard to not look nice.
The Basement’s motto is something like, «You’ve gotta start somewhere» and tries really hard to be the dirty little underground music venue for unsigned and unknown artists. Well, as much as you can be when you have the name PromoWest behind you. Even the spray painted namesake above the stage feels well planned by corporate forces.
But all that nitpicking aside, The Basement isn’t a bad place to see a band that might not make it to one of the other venues around Columbus. Tickets are always cheep, and as long as there isn’t anything major going on in the Arena District, parking is cheap as well.