Probably won't be able to go to the show due to my work-schedule, although if I can slip out of work a leetle early.... We'll see.
The Masquerade is probably the only concert club in the country that
wants to close down, but isn't being
allowed to. (Most of the time the powers-that-be want to shut a club down, but Atlanta tends to be a bit....backward.)
It's a neet-looking place to see a show (on the inside, anyway) with three inside rooms, plus a 'music park' outdoor venue in the back. It was once an excelsior mill (and it was once called The Excelsior Mill as a venue), and since a lot of the old machinery and equipment is still there, there's this suspiciously sudden push to have it declared a historical site...hence the management's difficulty in selling the property to a developer.
The Manowar show will be upstairs in 'Heaven.' There's also a downstairs bar called 'Purgatory' to the left as you enter, and a dance-club and smaller live stage to the right (underneath 'Heaven') called 'Hell,' appropriately enough. Sometimes people go hang out in Purgatory before 'their' bands take the stage. You can usually move freely up and down the central stairs.
The upstairs bathrooms tend to be crowded and ill-kept (except for the headliners' backstage bathroom...usually
), but there are also bathrooms downstairs in the back of 'Hell' that aren't as widely known. Depending on the show they may be accessible down the stairs via the exit from the back of 'Heaven' by the merch area.
If you get there early, you can park on that side street for free -- watch out for fire hydrants and posted no-parking zones!
