McMenamin's Crystal Ballroom
The only stage in town

by Sam Soule for pdxguide.com
January 2006

When it comes to big draw shows, Portland is really a one-stage town.

There are the medium-sized halls like the Roseland and the Aladdin. There are the smaller clubs like Dantes, Berbati's Pan, Ash Street and Doug Fir. And there are the tiny bars like the Jolly Inn and Billy Ray's Neighborhood Dive which occasionally give up a spare corner for a local band or underground unknown to play a set. But when an act needs a really big room, yet doesn't have the popularity to fill an arena like the Rose Garden, there really is only one option: The Crystal Ballroom.

Okay — I have my reservations about the Crystal, and we'll get to them shortly. But learning to like the Crystal, at least on some appreciative level, isn't hard. Portlanders have been doing it for over 90 years.

As an historical landmark with all its nationally recognized bonafides in order, the Crystal Ballroom opened in 1914. It debuted as a ballroom for dancing, and from that point on, it evolved with the times. By the late 1960's the Crystal had become a rock palace of major flower power. Shortly thereafter, the place shut down. Then, in 1997, McMenamins re-opened the languishing property. To its credit, the sprawling micro-pub chain did more than just a credible job restoring the Crystal to it's former glory. Today the ballroom is a complex.

A quick tour, then, is in order. On the ground floor is Ringler's, a typical McMenamin's style pub — as far as grub and microbrew fare goes. It is distinguished by its giant, mosaic-tiled island bar, warehouse capacity and bracing views of upper west Burnside street. On the second floor is a coat check, an ATM and Lola's, the Crystal's annex for smaller draw bands and DJ theme nights. I've seen a lot of good shows in this space. The bar is comfortable and the sound is good, with lots of seating and space to dance; an ace compliment to the entire Crystal Ballroom rock-o-sphere. And on the third floor, as epic in size as it is in presentation, is the main floor ballroom. I miss Lola's immediately upon entering.

Because the Crystal is the only option to see a big draw rock show in this town, fans with an active interest in live music eventually end up there, as much as they might try to do otherwise. Case in point, me. (Note: if the rock is drawing at the Rose Garden, it has long ceased to be rock).

It's not because I think the Crystal Ballroom is exceptionally poor — quite the opposite. I believe the Crystal is a fine room for a big show, one bolstered by an atmosphere of historical flourish. I mean, that's a huge candelabra hanging on the ceiling there — that kind of classy overkill works for me. This, that candelabra seems to say grandly, is a ballroom.

Unfortunately, the massive windows, the garish wall paintings, the over-sized sconces and light fixtures, all that leaves me cold. It's just too much of that overly-vibrant hippy aesthetic that runs throughout most things McMenamin. Still, there is something of a reverential air in the ballroom, something cathedral-like that makes a show here seem a bit more special than it would in other locations around town. No, I avoid the Crystal for two reasons, and both of them mean I'm a crank.

One, I simply don't care for the "big show experience". Weathering the press of a monster audience — and in the case of the Crystal, the press of an annoyingly all-ages monster audience — is not the way I prefer to connect with live music. I'd just as soon stay home and listen to my iTuner. Or read a book.

The second reason I avoid the Crystal is that I really DO NOT LIKE the Crystals famed "floating dance floor". The fact that the mechanical springs under the ballroom floorboards once made big band swingers feel like they were "dancing on air" is not a selling point to me. Certainly not when you've got a sea of hyperactive teenagers hopping up and down. Escaping to the cordoned off beer garden may mean reprieve from the kids but the floor is still rolling under you feet like mad, and now your at mercy of a mob of beer drunks, sad types more interested in swilling over-priced micro-brew than standing stage center in front of the band they paid good money to see.

My last resort is to take to higher ground. Seating in the small balcony is comfortable, and the fact that there is a bar up there is convenient, but that kind of long-distance viewing is not for me. I think the sound up there gets pretty bad, too. Then, about the time I feel the vocals are hopelessly lost in a mid-range mudwash, I remember I really need to get glasses. This is not what I came to a rock show for.

So I pick myself back up and walk on down to the quaking ballroom floor.

And I stand with the kids and try to maintain my balance.

The opinions expressed within are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of pdxguide.com or The Columbian Publishing Co.