When The Babies go on tour, they don’t mess around.  They don’t do off days to see the sights or to split up the long trips between cities.

Wednesday night’s Chicago gig followed a show the night before in Toronto. The night before that was Montreal. That’s 900 miles in a van over two days. Throw in some snow and a bit of a hassle crossing the border back into the states and you wonder how The Babies manage to perform with such great energy.

My brother Tim and I were part of the near-capacity crowd assembled at Schuba’s Wednesday night. It was Tim’s first Babies show. The band went on at 11:13 PM. The front bar sold ice cold sixteen-ounce Old Style cans. Tasty.

Chicago is known for healthy support of indie rock bands and this audience was a good one. Respectful. Somebody near the back shouted out for Moonlight Mile about halfway through the 53-minute performance. “In due time,” said Cassie Ramone. Before that was a creative and intense prelude to Ramone’s great tune “Baby.”

The other highlight came when Kevin Morby wheeled out “On My Team.” It sounded great. Justin Sullivan’s fusillade of aggressive snare hits into Morby’s “Oh burn, burn, burn, burn” line is followed by a dramatic guitar sequence and finally an awesome display of Ramone/Morby harmonizing. It’s a wonderful song and the band nailed it live.

Late in the set, two women jumped on stage and danced for a tune. The band acted as if they didn’t even notice the pair. That aspect of it made it entertaining. I’ve always found it interesting to watch how performers react to these types of unpredictable situations. After the women returned to their rightful position on the floor, both Ramone and Morby complimented the pair for the sideshow.

The band’s current mini-tour precedes a month’s worth of European dates that will commence after the Primavera Sound Fest in late May.

Before the show, my brother and I had a couple cold ones at Fireside Bowl on Fullerton. The legendary venue appears to be alive and well as does the Fireside’s personable proprietor Jimmy Lapinski.

Flooding from a big rainstorm in Chicago last week was evident from the sight of ruined carpeting, bedding and other furnishings discarded as refuse and set out on curbs for pickup by sanitation. As of 5 PM Wednesday, the rain gauge at O’Hare airport measured 8.58 inches of rain for the month of April. That’s the biggest April rainfall total in the city’s history. All but a couple of inches of that rain came in one shot last week.

It was raining when I arrived at O’Hare Tuesday afternoon. I took the CTA blue line train to Cumberland and transferred to a 290 Pace bus for the short ride to my brother’s place in Park Ridge. It was the first time riding public transit in Chicago since a fare increase went into effect January 14, 2013. While the base fare remains $2.25 system wide, the CTA is now charging riders originating at O’Hare five bucks to get on the train. I’ve seen other cities implement this type of premium charge on airport service to extract extra revenue from tourists. Given its attractiveness as a reliably quick ride to downtown, I can understand the CTA’s rationale. Airport workers who ride the blue line to and from the airport aren’t happy but the CTA has promised a fix that will “exempt employees working on O’Hare International Airport property” from the additional charge.

Both of my flights in and out of Chicago were delayed an hour or so because of FAA staffing problems created by implementation of automatic federal spending cuts. Air traffic controllers are being forced to take occasional unpaid days off to save money cut from the FAA budget by sequestration. The manpower shortages in control centers and towers are causing bad delays in New York and Los Angeles regardless of weather. It’s unclear whether the modest staffing cuts present real operational problems or if the FAA is imposing delays for the show of it in an attempt to curry public sympathy. The airline I work for is asking employees who interact with passengers to make sure the cause of the delays is discussed bluntly. A coalition of US-based air carriers and airline worker unions is on record saying the FAA could avoid the delays by finding reductions from “non-essential” portions of its budget. Said the group Airlines for America: “The FAA’s unnecessary and reckless action will disrupt air travel for millions of Americans, cost jobs and threatens to ground the US economy to a halt. It doesn’t have to be that way.”

Almost all of the indie rock bands I’ve become attached to over the last 30 years have gravitated towards performance venues that are warm and welcoming to the unique crowd that supports the genre.

I’ve been real lucky to live in places where patron-friendly barrooms operated by the likes of Richard King (Columbia, Mo), Bruce Finkelman and Sue Miller (Chicago) and Todd Patrick (here in New York) could be counted on for their trick-free door policy. The aforementioned show organizers and/or bar owners all cultivated vibrant scenes in their towns in part because of fairness applied to entry requirements at their establishments. For music fans who circle dates on their calendars to see a favored performer, the most crucial planning component before hitting the rock and roll show is determining how they’ll get in the door.

You either get a ticket or you don’t. It’s made clear in advance of some shows that you won’t need one.

I bring this up because my favorite band The Babies headlined a clusterfuck of a show Wednesday night at Knitting Factory in Brooklyn. It was a rare booking misstep by a band that has played dozens of local gigs at joints unencumbered by corporate involvement and even the slightest whiff of bullshit.

Billed as a celebration of area “bicycle builders,” I got word of the performance (sponsored by the whiskey-maker Jack Daniels) via the band’s Twitter page on 2-27-13. Fans interested in attending the free show were pointed to the web site “My Social List” to “RSVP.” A few days after expressing my firm intention to attend, I received an e-mail confirmation from L Magazine asking me to “join” them for the show.

Not having seen the band since their record release party and tour opener last November, I was excited as the night approached. I jumped on the train a little after 7 PM Wednesday and arrived in Williamsburg a few minutes before 8 PM. Still a full two hours before The Babies were scheduled to take the stage, a large crowd outside the Knit was lined up as I reached the venue so I had a quick cold one at the bar across the street with the idea it would thin out after the doors opened.

With the sidewalk still full in front of the venue about 8:15 PM, I dashed over to Trash for their special shot/beer combo and returned to the Knit. Signs taped to the door proclaimed the event “sold out” so I went to the box office only to be told the number of accepted RSVP’s had vastly outnumbered capacity. Entry to the show was denied. A genial bouncer forced into the role of diplomat told me overflow attendees could watch the performance from behind a near-soundproof glass partition in the outer bar. The opener Nude Beach was playing at this point. I tried for a few minutes to get in a frame of mind that would accept the limitation of watching a rock show this way but it didn’t work. I thought of good friends adept at the art of the persuasive schmooze and considered going that route but observed others trying that strategy without success.

To be fair, a second e-mail invitation delivered by L Magazine on the day of the gig included the disclaimer that “entry is not guaranteed.”

Also in fairness, Babies publicist Force Field made no advance mention of the gig. The band probably got paid a good guaranteed number and for that I’m happy. But part of what makes The Babies so lovable is the choices they’ve made along their creative expedition and the good will they build with their most loyal followers. Some of those folks were standing on the sidewalk Wednesday night looking in on a crowd lured by free whiskey and a deceptive invitation based on the possibility more people would show up than space would allow.

After stewing outside the Knit for a few minutes with a few dozen others, I gave up in a huff and walked down Metropolitan back to the G. I got home in time to see Carcillo score the game-winner for the Blackhawks.