DV8's setup was great

Jim Rose Circus Side Show, Machines of Loving Grace, Surgery, the Offspring, Guttermouth, Prong, Clutch, Dandy Warhols, Type O Negative, Seven Mary Three, Spacehog, Gravity Kills, Afghan Whigs — the list goes on.

These are just some of the bands I've seen at Club DV8 over the past 15 years.

And those memories flooded through my mind when the former club went up in flames last week.

I remember each show like it was yesterday. And while DV8 wasn't as clean as, say, the former Zephyr Club, it was more cutting edge and, in some cases, a bit more dangerous.

The danger I'm talking about refers more to the edginess of the bands that played DV8. But there is also the fact that if a fire had flared up in DV8 during its working days, the Great White's 2003 club-fire tragedy in Rhode Island, where more than 100 people perished, would have paled in comparison.

At any rate, Jars of Clay, Better than Ezra, Poe, the Eels, Grant Lee Buffalo, Vallejo, Ween, Deftones, Buzzcocks, Voodoo Glowskulls, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Rollins Band, Body Count, Rage Against the Machine, House of Pain, Everlast and Helmet played at DV8. And in every case, the audiences became just as much as part of the stage act as the bands.

Remember, this was in the '90s when mosh pits, stage diving and crowd surfing were encouraged.

Kids would climb on stage, do a few struts to the music and leap into the crowd. All the while the audience members on the floor would slam into each other, passing contorting bodies overhead or running around in moshing whirlpool frenzies.

I learned at Club DV8 that I was too short to mosh. My nose was at the right height to find elbows, or vice versa. Many times when I went to wash my face, some of the blood on the restroom floor was mine.

So, I learned fast that the upper floors of DV8 were the safest for me. And since the upper floors were the club portion — read 21-and-older — I found it quite comfortable to sit on a chair and relax while the all-ages area — main floor — was abuzz with angst and energy.

I loved the setup. The place was a renovated theater. And when Gothic-laced industrial bands like My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult and Machines of Loving Grace played, it felt like an all-out Theatre de Vampyres.

No Doubt, Fear Factory, Hed (pe), Jimmy Eat World, Sense Field, Elliott Smith, Dance Hall Crashers, Aquabats, Built to Spill, 311, Reverend Horton Heat, Train, Eve 6, Dexter Freebish, Evan & Jaron, Supersuckers, Anthrax, Lamb of God and Superjoint Ritual had their early-career performances at Club DV8.

I even remember seeing Utah's former heavyweight band the Obvious film a video there. In fact, after the shoot, I was able to sit with them behind the stage for a short interview during, gasp, daylight hours.

Morphine, Crash Test Dummies, Pennywise, Proclaimers, Ugly Kid Joe, Hole, Veruca Salt, 7 Seconds, Bouncing Souls, Killing Joke, The Cramps, The Fugees, Jawbreaker, Korn, Throwing Muses, Gravity Kills, Insatiable, My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Tracy Bonham and the Specials — the list goes on.

Farewell, Club DV8. It's a shame, but a good thing no one was in there.

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E-mail: scott@desnews.com

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