Donny Benét w/ OTNES

The Read

Donny Benét performs as a kind of lounge-lizard persona — bass-forward disco, deadpan crooning, arrangements that would sound at home in a hotel bar in 1983. What keeps it from being a joke is that the playing is excellent and the songs are actually good. He is a serious bassist doing a character, which is a much harder trick than either one alone. The Basement East is the right size for something this camp: close enough that the audience becomes part of the bit, dark enough that nobody feels self-conscious dancing. It is two nights before Halloween, and a large share of this crowd will already be in some kind of costume. The show does not need the holiday. It will absorb it anyway.

The Room

The Basement East

917 Woodland St

Mike Grimes of Grimey's opened it in April 2015 — the graduation from The Basement on 8th, with a bigger room and a bigger calendar.