Ok since this seems to have sparked quite the debate/conversation I will expand further on my comments earlier so to hopefully be better understood....
Do I think a show like, for example, ND/Agalloch/Woods Of Ypres or something along those lines would do well here? Yes I do. Would I be into doing it? Yes I would. Is it easy to sell a decent Chicago city-area club on that idea and get them to give us a good weekend date, fair pay, and put some effort into the gig? Nope. Again, no offense Diabolik but you kinda talk like this isn't something we're smart enough to have considered, pursued, etc. countless times. I don't want to get into specific details but we were recently planning a show similar to this with a very nice lineup of bands, and we had TONS of trouble even getting these clubs to return our phone calls. Like I said in my previous post, the problem is not on our end, we are quite willing to do shows with good lineups and whatnot. It's getting the clubs and the promoters on board. Without them, what do we do? Book the local bingo hall? Sorry, we're not interested in that, and as you mentioned, one of the key elements is getting a booking at a good place in a good central location. And in order to bring in really good bands from other parts of the country, like Agalloch or WoY and so forth, we have to get some kind of money guarantee in order to make it financially feasable for those bands to travel here.
There's always someone saying we should do this or we'd be better off doing that, and so on.....well, tell you what? YOU go and make it happen, you work on setting up some badass shows in great clubs with other awesome bands (and NOT ask us to play for free, thank you) and we'll definitely talk. More than half of the time, it's a feat just getting someone to return our calls. I'm not kidding.
