suggestions for venues for live shows

Amy and I went to see the Iron & Wine/Calexico show last Wednesday at the Avalon, next to Fenway Stadium in Boston. The show itself was great - classy, brooding, and mellow. But the concert experience left a lot to be desired. The main problems were:

• too many people for the size of the place (maybe code violations were going on?).. for a while we were standing in a high-traffic spot, and people kept squeezing past us.
• not nearly enough places where someone could simultaneously sit down and see the show.
• viewing areas were not sufficiently below the stage, or angled upwards. Basically, we had to keep standing on our toes to see over the heads of people in front of us.

I think the ultimate way to see a show would be in air chairs (hanging canvas chairs), hanging in the shape of bleachers (low in front, nosebleed in the back). You could get into your chair at the bottom, then press a button that would take you up to the appropriate height. That would be great fun - a cheaper alternative that would probably maximize capacity for the club would just be bleachers with comfortable seats behind a sloped standing area in the front. That way people who want to stand and dance could do so, and people who want to sit and watch could also do so.

Chimp Simple played at a club in New York called Kenny's Castaways on Saturday night. This place solved the venue problems nicely by having an area near the (raised) stage where people could stand and dance, with tables further back for sitting. Then there was a lofted area that curved around above the stage, where you could look down directly onto the performance from above. Kenny's capacity is a lot less than the Avalon, so the solution probably couldn't be applied directly to a place like Avalon without modification, but it's a great start.