New* Things #3: The Morroccan Lounge

The Moroccan Lunge is a small music venue in the northern part of Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles. When you first walk in, there’s a bar area and then the stage area is in the back. They claim that the capacity is 250 people but that seems like it would be VERY uncomfortable. One pro-tip that I learned is that there is a kind of bench in the back of the stage area to sit on but you are also allowed to stand on it so for more packed shows, that’s probably the second best place to be if you can’t get near the front.

The sound guy did not have the best night. The vocals were sometimes too loud and the keyboard player for the headliner was set to 0 for the first two songs. When he launched into a solo, everyone was kind of staring at him in confusion until the lead singer finally said, “Wait, can any of you hear him?” After a loud NO! and the singer saying “C’mon, turn that shit up!”, the sound guy finally turned the volume up on the keyboards.

Still, I like smaller shows and this is a solid venue. Based on tonight, I would recommend it as a date spot but that’s because the music in the bar area was low. I went on a date here years ago and it was a disaster. The music was loud, I couldn’t hear my date. We went for Live Band Karaoke which was a mess because you put your song in and then there’s basically a lottery to see who sings but if someone else chose your song, then there’s another lottery to see who gets to sing. Given this set-up, you’d think they would show which songs are going to be played but, no, it’s only like one or two songs ahead that are listed, and since you can only put one song in, you could just stand there with no hopes of ever getting on stage. Which is what happened to my date and I. It was just not a fun night but this latest visit gives me hope for the future. Well, for others, I’ve given up on dating. But that’s a whole ‘nother blog post.