Backstage Productions booked our debut gig at Knickerbockers on a Thursday night. Knickerbockers night club located at 2500 Walden Ave in Cheektowaga was in direct competition with Uncle Sam’s, a more popular venue located just down the street at 2525 Walden Avenue.
Knickerbockers Bar & Restaurant
Parousia was on a nice upswing as this point in our career. Back in July, we recorded four new original songs at Randy’s studio, and in August we signed a contract with Backstage Productions for booking and management. August and September were busy months. We had been playing every weekend at Melanie’s Pub in Williamsville and when we weren’t playing there, we were at the Plant-6 club on Niagara St. in Buffalo and its twin on Delaware Ave. in Kenmore, NY. Our band was polished and our sound was tight.
PAROUSIA – 1980
Even though we played well on this particular night, we were not received well by the usual crowd attending Knickerbockers. It was a Thursday, (a work night and school night) and it wasn’t easy for us to get our friends out of their cozy little shells to show up at our gig. The few that did show were drowned out by the hard-core Southern Rock fans that hang out at this club and our music was just too psychedelic and progressive for their tastes.
It was pretty clear after we played our opening number by Cheap Trick, “Hello there Ladies and Gentleman / “He’s a Whore”, that the Knickerbockers crowd preferred their house band, “the Ozone Rangers”, a tribute act playing songs by ZZ Top.
We should have known that our sound wasn’t going to be an easy sell when we saw the name, “OZONE RANGERS” permanently affixed to the top of the Marquee. At the end of the day we knew we would never play at this venue again. The Ozone Rangers were here to stay and Parousia was “freak music” to them.
The last home of Knickerbockers, 2500 Walden Avenue, Cheektowaga, NY.