ST. PAUL, Minn. — A lineup of bands playing at popular punk house Chalet Cretin has been quickly re-billed as a “basement show” after a sinkhole suddenly opened up beneath the living room, injured attendees have reported.
“There’s no need to call 911 and put the kibosh on the fun, it’s just an extremely quick change of scenery caused by the domino effect of never clearing my gutters or checking for groundhogs. Besides, we’ve got like nine bands to go and it wouldn’t be fair to them if we canceled the show just because someone is trapped underneath the rubble,” said house owner Hank Paulson. “Look–we can sit here and cry about everyone’s grievous injuries, or we can point some flashlights into the gaping chasm that was once my living room and fucking party. Besides, I got a semi-famous band to play tonight and I’ll look like an asshole if we cancel the show.”
Members of hardcore band Britney Sneers, who were in the middle of their set when the floor collapsed, were surprised the damage wasn’t worse.
“Classic Hank, trying to spin this as a venue change and not an infrastructure fuck up. These floors have always groaned and creaked louder than the music, I’m surprised this didn’t happen sooner. He’s just lucky our gear was already half busted up to begin with, or this would be ten times worse,” said lead singer Bea Richardson. “Not gonna lie though, the acoustics down are way better if you ignore the people screaming in agony. The biggest challenge now is waiting for EMS to come and help lift these Marshall stacks out of this hole.”
Scene veteran “Jackknife” Lewis commended Paulson for not letting a natural disaster interrupt a good time.
“Gotta hand it to Hank for sticking to ‘the show must go on’ credo. Nowadays I see bitch-ass showrunners cancel gigs before you can finish your first beer over some light rain, but this was a genius move on his part to rebrand the second the floor gave way,” said Lewis. “Real punks don’t let something like a cave-in stop them. Last year my buddy’s house burned down and he still had three bands play in the charred remains hours later. Called it the ‘Phoenix Festival.’ So casualties aside, tonight was a pretty good show.”
Later, Paulson was forced to alter the event title to an “acoustic show” after Jackknife windmill kicked an exposed power line.