Pianist Eric Lewis Performs Benefit at DNA Lounge

A last minute benefit show has been arranged tonight (Saturday, 4/25/09) for The DNA Lounge featuring pianist Eric Lewis.

The show starts at 5:30 (doors at 5) and goes until 7:30. Admission is free, but you can make a donation to support The DNA Lounge (and buy drinks, too) in their fight to stay open. More details are on Oren Michels’ blog. Oren’s company Mashery is sponsoring the show along with Zivity.

I had the pleasure and honor of attending a private performance by Eric as part of the launch party for startup Adventive.com at Harry Denton’s Starlight Room off Union Square this past week.

I put up a Flickr set with photos and videos that I shot at this intimate performance in an incredible venue.

While Eric is trained and honored in classical and jazz music circles, he loves to perform solo piano interpretations of popular and alternative bands like The Killers, Evanescence and The Knife. He is an incredibly passionate performer who is awesome (in the grandest of senses) to see live. I cannot recommend this highly enough.

DNA Lounge has been battling to stay open due to aggressive practices by The California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control that seem to target all ages venues and that also focused on nights when DNA featured LGBT events (as Violet Blue has covered).

Eric’s performance at TED2009 is how many people around the world first heard of this singular performer.

It’s an early show, so if you are going out tonight (like to the How to Destroy the Universe show at NIMBY), you can easily catch this, too.

mikl-em
Mikl-em

Actor, nerd, poet, producer, writer mikl-em made his name short so you wouldn't have to. In addition to his blog you can find his writing in "Hi Fructose" magazine and witness him almost life-sized in various plays at The Dark Room Theater in SF's Mission district.

He tends to write about theater, humor, San Francisco culture and history, and stuff that's just plain weird. He thanks Scott for sharing the keys to the Laughing Squid virtual HQ and promises to uphold whatever it is that the mirthful cephalopod would prefer to be uplifted.