Decemberists To Play Hammerstein (Dammit)

So I've pretty much come to accept the fact that the Decemberists are freakin' huge these days, and that they're only going to get bigger with the release of their new album, The Crane Wife, on Capitol on October 3rd.

(That's not to say I understand why they're so big. I love them and all, but how did a dorky band that writes dorky songs that aren't about teenage angst get so popular??)

What I can't get over, though, is that they've decided that their popularity requires them to play New York's Hammerstein Ballroom - i.e., the worst venue I've ever been to. For those of you unfamiliar, Hammerstein has a humungous general admission floor and two or three large balconies, giving it a total capacity of around 5,500, I think. The room has several key flaws, not least of which is that the stage is too low, meaning that unless you're at the front of the floor (a near impossibility unless you're the first person in the door), you can barely see the band. I saw Dylan there a couple of years back and was lucky to see his hair sticking above the crowd for about 5 minutes. The second major problem is that the sound sucks on the floor. Just awful. So if you want to hear anything, you need to be in a balcony, where, of course, you can't see a freakin' thing. And, considering that one of the Decemberists' calling cards is their connection with their concert crowd, this is going to absolutely kill their live dynamic. I'd much rather see them do 2 nights at Roseland, as bad as that place is.

Anyway, the show is November 3rd (thanks to Brooklyn Vegan for the heads up), and Ticketmaster has no indication of an onsale date yet. Personally, I may skip Hammerstein and go to one of the following shows at much better venues:

Sunday, October 29th, 9:30 Club, Washington D.C.
Monday, October 30th, 9:30 Club, Washington D.C.
Wednesday, November 1st, Electric Factory, Philadelphia