Last week, I checked out Guitar Hero night at Fellini’s #9. Here’s how it stacked up to my expectations…
Expectation #1: Not a lot of rockstars in the crowd. True. It was the same three or four guys taking turns playing medium and easy levels of 80s rock songs while older men squinted and scowled at the screen between cigarette drags. But it’s strangely addictive to watch… especially after that episode of Gossip Girl. (Girl crush on Blake Lively. Don’t you?)
Expectation #2: A well-made, stiff drink. Not so much. The menu says “top shelf” vodka “dirty martini” with “gorgonzola stuffed olives,” the garnish being the sole reason I wanted it. For $7, it was, unfortunately, too good to be true. I asked the bartender to remake it after I saw him pouring Aristocrat into a mixer. “Do I get to choose the vodka?” I asked. “No.” It was a Skyy vodka martini with no gorgonzola in sight. (Meh.) Two people I told after the fact said I would have been justified in returning that, too. I hate causing a scene, though! Right?
Expectation #3: Whatever happens at guitar night, it won’t be the end of Fellini’s for me. Definitely. They have The bloody mary bar, a good beer and wine selection, indoor smoking with good ventilation, and my favorite restaurant name in town! I think Guitar Hero could really take off in bars, like karaoke but for people who don’t like singing or being in front of large groups face-on. If anyone wants to take Rock Band on the road, I’ll school you on drums. I played percussion for the school band the fall semester of sixth grade. And that’s about all the skill you need to be a bar rockstar.
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Tagged as: Activities, Bars, Charlottesville, Downtown Mall, Music, Restaurants, Restaurants/Bars
I’m seriously considering getting video nights going again at Wild Wings, with Rock Band and Guitar Hero being the bulk of it. Sounds like the idea is really picking up.
I ordered the martini with “gorgonzola stuffed olives” one time at Fellini’s.
Gross.
While the gin was Tanqueray, the olives were just cocktail olives with little flecks of cheese clinging to their exterior that fell off as soon as they entered the drink. The result was an unpleasantly chunky, cheesy martini.
Gross.
Is Fellini’s a dive?
Jeez, why don’t people take the time to pick up and learn to play an actual guitar instead of playing video games in their mom’s basement so they can go out to a bar once a week and impress people with their “geetar skillz”?
I, too, was once drawn in by the siren song of gorgonzola stuffed olives. Happened in the condiments aisle of HT. Went looking for your standard martini olives and grabbed at the promise of such a nifty alternative. Eww. Not as good as promised, even when you actually do end up with the cheese inside. There’s just something off-putting about the taste. However, the jalapeno stuffed olives? AWESOME. I think Escafe at one point offered almond stuffed olives in their martinis. An interesting option, but the jalapeno ones are definitely my favorite.
IMHO Fellini’s is closer to an Applebee’s than a dive, but I may still be bitter that we got kicked out of there once for just being a bit load right around the time they first opened
Oooooh the dive question. I think what makes a dive a dive is when it’s ironic to go there. Usually, yuppies/hipsters/yupsters are referring to an out-of-the-way drinking hole in a worn-down space that caters to blue-collar workers and doesn’t charge a whole lot for a bottle of Bud. But Austin was a big “dive” city. There’s a bar next to the Texas Capitol called the Cloakroom, and it’s where the politicians and an occasional rockstar go. On a random weekday night, I saw Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes there (for a second time in my life, and yes I am name-dropping!). It’s dark and whatever, but it’s definitely patroned by the elite. As such, it was ironic for me to drink there. Another place was the Beauty Bar, an old non-functioning hair salon, really darkly lit, kinda eerie, on Red River (across from Stubb’s) with cool drinks and a photo booth, usually like a dozen skinny faux-hawked kids in skinny jeans smoking Lucky Strikes and nodding their heads to the beat of crazy-loud techno music. It was a dive for me because, hi, have we met? When I went back to Austin City Limits music festival in September, they were charging cover and a popular local band was playing. Definitely not an ironic dive anymore. I looked way too normal there. So I don’t think it has to do with how thick the layer of dirt is on the door, or what socioeconomic status its alcoholics have… it’s just like doing something you wouldn’t normally do, trying not to fit in. “Dive” sounds like it’s taking a step down, but if you’re the regular, the outsider is stepping up!
Big Al’s is a dive. And there is nothing ironic about it. I know few who have been brave enough to tread those waters of old school Charlottesville. I have been in there at dinner time and I got people turning around like a needle was pulled off the record - and I am no prepster. I challenge those among you who call yourself hip to a saturday night excursion to Big Al’s. Fuck OXO. Go to Big Al’s at midnight for THEIR dance party. I’m in if I can find people big enough to go with me.
Fellini’s #9 is not a dive bar.
The original Fellini’s was.
If you consider a “Bloody Mary Bar” a two top bar table with a couple of small bowls of peppercinis, a few olives, and a bottle of tabasco with some wilted celery, well then Fellini’s is it.
I made out with Chris Robinson’s Brother Rich, in 3 different cities.
For the record Garlic stuffed Olives are the best. Poll anyone?
The Saturn Bar in New Orleans is a real Dive, just ask Nicolas Cage.
(*Snap, oh no she didn’ name drop again!)
That was some sweet one-upping!
damn right. stick with me yups, I can take you places.
I’ve been to Big Al’s on a Saturday and it’s scary. But to each his own. And by each, I mean, light-beer-guzzling rednecks.
And why is everyone so crazy about Guitar Hero? The video graphics look ridiculously fake, it seems to have nothing to do with actual guitar playing and you have to use a dorky plastic clicking kid’s toy to play it.
Air guitar is way cooler. Go Tim.
Here’s my impression of Yupster.
“This one time? At band camp?”
You could have at least left out the part about your middle school band, honey-bunny.
don’t be hatin’ on yups, lilith.
I love yupster!
is anyone watching effing Milo on American Idol, holy shit.
are you lilith silmo?
I thought I was yupster
i love yupster!