I went to see Neko Case last night at The Tabernacle in Atlanta. She sounded great, vocally, but I was reminded again of the reasons why I hate going to shows at the Tabernacle.

• It’s in downtown Atlanta.
• They took a beautiful, old church and desecrated it.
• The acoustics suck. Not just “suck,” but “completely, totally, royally suck.”
• It’s hot as hell inside.
• The smoking lounge is in the basement, directly below the main performance hall. Guess where all that disgusting smoke goes. Remember, smoke rises.
• The sound engineers believe all the attendees are deaf, and thus turn all the soundboard knobs to 11.
• The acoustics suck. Mightily. (Yes, I know this is on the list twice.)

I said that Neko sounded good, but I need to clarify that. I could tell that the notes were correct as she sang, but had I not known the words to her songs, I would have no clue what she was saying. This goes back to the acoustics sucking, and all the soundboard knobs being turned to 11. And when Neko was talking, I have no idea what she was saying. She and Kelly Hogan made some comment about Chik-Fil-A and Kelly said something about Neko’s “wicked axe” but that was all I could make out. The sound was loud and overlapping (that’s the best word I can think of to describe it) and it was nearly impossible, once you added in crowd noise, to understand what she was saying.

I really don’t like going to shows there.