I had always heard that Crash Mansion was the lamest place ever, so I was apprehensive about going to JellyNYC, in the basement of Crash Mansion, on Friday night. It’s billed as a late night rock party with free Jello shots on the hour and DJ’s spinning “kick ass rock n’ roll”. The club is divided into two parts, and for JellyNYC there was practically no line. The space was huge, with a bar area containing pinball machines stools and then a bigger dance/floor stage area with booths. I had no trouble at all finding a table near the stage, one of largest I’ve seen in a NY club in awhile. They were out of the $3 PBRs they had advertised, but their other drink prices were pretty reasonable, in the $5-10 dollar range. As promised, at 1am a round of jello-shots started circulating which were tasty, and actually pretty potent.
I went specifically to see Heather, one of last remaining badass rock bands. Within seconds of taking the stage they had groupies headbanging in the front row, and at 2am, when the jello shots came around again the lead singer got all the girls up on stage to dance.This is one of the few bands that can pull off stunts like these, or songs like “Girl, Sister, Woman” with lyrics: “Girl you’re my sister, but you’ll always be a woman when we’re makin love.” Brilliant. Heather will be playing at Arlene’s Grocery every Saturday night in October at 11pm, and if you wanna rock, you will be there.
As for Crash Mansion, JellyNYC is not a bad rock night. The DJ was good, the crowd was fun and I heard that later in the evening JellyNYC merged with the hip-hop party happening upstairs and at one point Lil Jon wandered down to say hello. Not too bad for $7.