Wynne Business

House of Blahs

Last week my husband and I went to Anaheim for a combination of family business and business-business. Being in the hospitality industry is both a blessing and a curse. The curse part: you can’t ever have a “pure” hospitality experience; you dissect it. (Spouses of hospitalitarians can quickly detect the telltale gimlet-eyed stare when their mate begins to analyze rather than experience a meal.)

The evening we arrived, we went to Downtown Disney, a cluster of high-concept restaurants and retail stores outside the park. Our mission: watch the second half of the game, find some dinner, and catch a show at the House of Blues after the game. We had hoped to accomplish this all at HOB.

We began with hostesses outside the venue. While smiling is the law inside Disneyland, the HOB team was clearly under strict orders to project facial expressions consistent with its core theme of “the blues.” Though not as grim and grizzled as true bluesmen, these young ladies were well into mastering Stage One Blues, known to the layperson as “indifference” and “boredom.”

There were no tables available, we learned, but we could drink until something opened up. The ostensible “Superbowl Party” inside, sponsored by JACK FM, featured nothing resembling a large screen TV. A brilliant bit of blues branding, this enabled us to experience a taste of the bitterness and disappointment so popular in the Mississippi delta.

In the throes of our own personal blues, we abandoned the HOB and sought Superbowl solace in the arms of the Jazz Kitchen nearby. There we were seated with great enthusiasm by a young lady who seemed to have been waiting all her life to serve us. Though the television facilities in the Jazz Kitchen were, if anything, a bit worse, the atmosphere in the room where the Superbowl Party was taking place was heady. There was a buffet of deep fried everything; heartfelt, inebriated shouts of “Who Dat!” and Mardi Gras beads passed out whenever the Saints scored. Bosomy older ladies in oversize football jerseys jumped to their feet with every play. Our earnest young server brought everything with ceremony, effused over the offerings on the menu, and managed to bring me the cryogenically cold martini I always order and never receive.

When my spouse returned briefly to the HOB to inquire when the music would be starting, the hostesses informed him with absolute certainty that there was no music that evening. In fact, they added, there would be no blues at the house of blues for almost a week. My husband was in a mild panic, since we were there specifically to see our favorite tribute band, Platinum Rock Stars.

“Honey, are you sure this is the right House of Blues?” hubby asked doubtfully. (Given the dishevelment of my perimenopausal brain, he’s right to be worried.)

I texted the band manager.

“We’re setting up now,” he assured me. Fueled with righteous indignation and a bit of Grey Goose, I marched back to the HOB hostess stand to inform them of their grievous error. PInetop Perkins or Honeyboy Edwards would have admired their near-total indifference, not forged by years of hard luck, hard liquor and disappointment, but freshly minted somewhere in Orange County.

Saints triumphant, we headed back to the House of Blues. Wristbands were affixed to prove our ability to drink. (Later we would learn that they ran out of wristbands and stopped admitting people to the show, ensuring that the venue remained half empty–like the bluesman’s proverbial glass.)

In her book “Branded Customer Service,” Janelle Barlow argues persuasively that the ultimate expression of a corporate brand is the people who work on the front lines. House of Blues has taken this deeply to heart. We encountered a scowling female bartender and a sound crew whose dedication to their job rivaled that of a prison trusty.

After rocking out to blazing micro-sets of Led Zeppelin, Boston, Def Leppard, Van Halen, and Bon Jovi, we were ready to head back to the hotel. Outside the HOB, David Victor, the band’s charismatic lead singer, who impersonates Robert Plant and David Lee Roth with equal ease, chatted amiably with some of the show’s attendees, including an 8 year old boy. (Whether or not this was branded behavior for a Platinum Rock Star is debatable.)

Little Jacob was a “Rock Star” video game afficionado, who’d we’d observed singing passionately along to virtually every song while his mom looked on proudly. She told us that it was his first live show, and then he and his sister had their pictures taken with David, much to their delight.

Walt Disney would have been proud. Pinetop Perkins, maybe not so much.