Clubbing with James Tran

Friends convince me to come here, where it was claimed it was pretty awesome, so here we go!

Poetry @ Pavilion Hotel
Assessment Time: 09:00PM – 12:30AM
Opening Hours: 09:00PM – Late, but Pavilion Hotel itself is open throughout the day
Lockout: None
Website: http://www.pavilionhotel.com.au , http://www.hypnotizeent.com
Address: 580 George St, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual is allowed, and appears to be the norm.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $10 all night.
Guestlist: No guestlist applicable.
Occurence: Every Friday
Inside: The register is located on top of the entry stairs. Meaning that both the top level dance floor and level below, which is the sole gambling and driking area, is only accessible for the punter. Focusing on the top level, this is where the dance action is at. DJ at the corner, with a wooden dancefloor to hold about 100 or so people. Huge concrete slab in the middle of the area to separate the dancing from the lounge area, where there is basically no lighting at all. Bar on the right to serve the floor.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: Standard drinks are $3.50 before 11PM. Chicks get free drinks, of limited choice of course.
DJs: DJ’s Tikelz/Moto/Manny/Pacheco
Music: RnB, Old School, Hip Hop
Crowd: Indian, Asian, Aussie, Euro – a bit of everything. There seemed to be a lot more girls than guys tonight.
Entertainment: Just the DJ tonight.
Atmosphere: Pretty bland throughout the evening proceedings. At peak it was decent, but peak did not last long. People were only coming up to dance to the songs they liked.
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Related:

• RNB night @ Home Nightclub, then Pontoon Bar – Friday 21 August 2009
• Quick Review: Friday RnB @ Favela Nightclub, Sydney: 7th May 2010
• Puls8 (Pulsate) @ Shark Hotel: Weekend 19th and 20th March 2010
• The Market @ Haymarket Hotel Sydney: Saturday 6th March 2010
• Satisfaction @ Tao Nightclub (Grand Opening): Saturday 20th February 2010

Related:

• Fridays @ Star Bar: 4th December 2009
• Tuesday Club Crawl: Coyote Night @ The Gaff, Scruffy Murphys (The Vault), 3 Wise Monkeys
• Fridays @ Side Bar (3rd July 2009)
• Quick Review: Friday RnB @ Favela Nightclub, Sydney: 7th May 2010
• Fridays @ Star Bar: 19th March 2010

We spent a good 2 hours at Pavillion dancing then it reached around 12:30, where everybody typically leaves. It was time to find another club, but we just ended up walking around half of the Sydney CBD area checking out the typical clubs…. so here we go!

11 Quick Club reviews as seen from outside the club aka Window Shopping – 19th December 2009. (Northern Sydney CBD)

Saturdays @ Star Bar on George St
- Packed. However we had overdosed lately on Star Bar and its amusing crowd of non-english speaking tourists. It was a no go tonight, no matter how tempting it was to go inside there.

PS. I no longer write reviews when I visit star bar, as I visit this place too much.

Saturdays @ Arthouse on Pitt St (1am)
- Tonight was not an ‘Asian’ night (Fame), but it was a white-crowd event. House music was playing outside, and there was no line outside – it looked pretty shit inside from the outside. There was a cover charge.

Saturdays @ The Vault on Pitt St
- We walked by this bar and heard RNB music playing! Whoa, we have to try it out. We walk up to the entrance and there is a smallish dance floor with about 15 people dancing on it – it was almost dead, but better than Pavillion. However the bouncer refused us entry on the excuse of ‘a private function’. We were 4 guys so it was understandable, but the private function excuse didn’t seem congruent, as there was no second person to confirm a guestlist. Whatever, it was dead.

Saturdays @ Coolabar
- Music is pumping out, tape and escalators are in operation to the bar upstairs. There are two people outside. It was on! We know Coolabar is a shithole, but we want to wow the crowd inside, if there was one.

We run up but the two people inside tell us we can’t go inside, as the place is closed. What!?! You wonder why some places are even open at all if they are closing at 1.30am on a Saturday night.

Bamboo @ Martin Place Bar
- The line is shorter than usual, but there *is* a line, which is better than the other places so far. Entirely asian, and RNB playing outside, it is tempting to go inside, but all four of us were not big fans of paying $25 to go inside. People inside had santa hats on. We could see Jason the resident Korean bum dancer hogging the podium from the outside.

Security came up and spoke with us. We had a short fun chat and perved on some girls walking by, you know, typical man stuff. Security was called to kick out a drunk person. Moments later he is walking out with a drunk girl and 3 of her girlfriends supporting her. haha, it is not classy at all to see a drunk girl, let me tell you that. Security tells the girls it is all ok, and wraps his arms around the two girls beside him. LOL omg he is hitting on drunk girls outside of thd club – I want to be a bouncer now!!! haha, what a sneaky sleaze.

Funky Buddha @ Verandah Bar on Castlereagh St (Martin Place)
Here they recently opened the trance room again (after a 3 or 4 year absence). Cover is $20, crowd is asian, music is RNB and trance.

We ask some girls who left Funky Buddah if it was any good.
“Average” was the reply. It was in other words, shit. There was, though, a line outside, so it must be somewhat ok.

I do want to check it out as it’s been a while, and I have to see how the Trance room looks now.

Saturdays @ Red Room Hotel Chambers on Castlereagh St (Martin Place)
We were able to peek inside from the entrance – and even though it looked crowded, it didn’t seem like a fun atmosphere. Music was old school RNB, with a cover charge of $20 and an asian crowd.

Tank Nightclub (Bridge lane)
OneLove moved to the Bourbon about a month ago, and we did not know if there was any event, so we took a punt and walked here. It was, unfortunately, closed. (At the time writing, Onelove @ the Bourbon has also shut its doors)… I think I might start a new event here! ha.

20/20 @ Brooklyn Hotel (George St Circular Quay)
Ever since Privilege closed for renovations a few weeks ago, promoters Hypnotize moved their Saturday event to Brooklyn and joined with Urban Agent to help out. The result is that my favourite place to go for free drunk girls and $17 Vodka Red Bulls has turned into a cover charged event full of not so drunk people. I yearn for the former glory days of seediness.

I peek inside the main rnb room and it is pretty packed. I go around the back and look down in the outdoor courtyard area where they are playing house/trance. Back in the no-cover charge days, the place usually had 5-10 people dancing max, while the others sit and watch. Now with the help of the promoters, the entire back area as PACKED. Jesus fucking christ I could not believe what I was seeing – Brooklyn Hotel actually packed out! I could not see any concrete, it was just a sea of people standing up, dancing and cheering. It looked pretty awesome. The bartenders must be having a hard time adjusting to actually having to work non-stop.

However my friends, still don’t want to go inside. They are pretty adamant about not going inside here, considering the crappy times they had the last few times. haha.

Also, regular patrons here (i.e. the islanders) were lining up to get in, not knowing that they need to pay entry. There were some outside, thinking of other places to go. So the crowd inside was a mix of islanders, asians and aussies. Cover charge I am guessing is $20. Based on what I saw, it looks good.

Sienna @ Establishment on George St
We are just walking by. They’re playing house music, though I had thought Sienna was an RNB event. The crowd is dominantly Euro, and cover charge is $20. I do need to check this place out too. It looked pretty busy from what we could see

Saturdays @ Ivy on George St
Loud, and looking quite busy. We can’t see inside from the street but we can hear people cheering from the inside. Sounds like fun. Am definitely going to spend a night here one day next year.

Saturdays @ Bar 333 on George St (2am)
Bottom level was closed and upstairs looked pretty dead.

Arrivederci
By this time we have given up, and we have managed to end up back where we started – standing outside Star Bar. I was dying to do any form of dance, but friends were puffed out from walking up and down the CBD for 2 hours. Fair enough, but I wish they were keen for a dance!! So we called it a night.

Recommendation
If I had to pick a club tonight, it would be 20/20 @ Brooklyn Hotel.

Related:

• Shanghai Nights (Grand Opening) @ Brooklyn Hotel: Friday 26th February 2010
• Fame @ Arthouse : Saturday 7th November 2009
• Bamboo @ Martin Place Bar (27th June 2009)
• Saturdays @ Star Bar (16th may 2009)
• Bamboo @ Martin Place Bar: Saturday 17th July 2010

So we were eating a KFC dinner watching Iron Chef. We were at Joe’s residence – Joe, Cherryl, An and I. The ingredient of tonight’s show was liver. Gross. Cherryl wanted to go clubbing. They all wanted rnb. It was a Saturday 11pm and we were an hour away from any clubs. We drove to city, with no idea where to go.

First stop was Bamboo. Luckily for me, Joe’s license wasn’t accepted as it had expired. Bamboo was in the exclusion zone during this APEC summit week. They weren’t going to let terrorists with expired drivers licenses enter a nightclub to get smashed and dance. Shame. They would have loved ‘Lean Back’ by Terror Squad.

The two other options were pumphouse or pavillion. We headed to pavillion.

It was pretty busy, and everyone is dancing or bumming out. The crowd was mixed nationality. I scanned around .. No VSA members holding their birthdays this time around. So we started to dance…

All is going ok. Suddenly the DJ starts playing this Punjab song. You know the one. The one Jay-Z remixed his voice with. There were 4 indians on the floor. When the song started to play, the whole damn floor became saturated with indians, all of them with their hands in the air and dancing like madmen !! It was a sight to see. Nobody else had a chance to do their own dance. It was New Dehli in Sydney!

Some chicks checked me out. They were from Thailand, but they had to go.

We left soon after.

This is such a half assed entry.

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After an expensive dinner at a Korean BBQ restaurant followed by heavy drinking, two of my high school friends Patrick and Mithilesh wanted some free clubbing action.

It was going to be a tight ass night (again)

I knew Pavillion was packed on Saturday nights so off we went.

~Midnight: Pavillion Hotel

A Quick Summary of Pavillion Saturday nights: I covered this in some earlier post so in summary, Pavillion Hotel means:
- rnb and hip hop with some pop songs
- free all night
- dark and packed
- mixed crowd of Aussies/Asians/Indians
- cheap alcohol

Once we got in, we went straight to the dancing. Ran into Kimberley, who I met through VSA (Yes, the same VSA group I met Kevin last night). She was here for her friends birthday. Pavilion must be a popular place for Vietnamese birthdays. Kimbo didn’t want a photo but I got a photo with the birthday girl. Dunno her name.

I don’t think we lasted long. It was a little too packed to do much attention grabbing dancing. Mithilesh didn’t like it so I chose Shark Bar next.

Why shark bar? Isn’t it so dodgy?
Yes, it is. But the dance floor is reasonable on Saturday. It’s enough to dance and mingle.

About Shark Hotel Saturday Nights:
Liverpool St. Same building as Space nightclub (which is located the level directly above). On entering you see lots of chairs. Then on the right theres lots of pool tables. The dancefloor takes a back seat in the rear. This place is more of a hangout place for people to chat and get cheap drinks. The dancefloor isn’t what people usually come here to do. Renowned to have some dodgy characters within.
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CLUB CRAWL!

Background: Cheryl organised a night out with me, an, hanh and Steven. The purpose was to go clubbing somewhere else besides her usual spot: bamboo @ martin place bar.

ZODIAC HOTEL:

I got an sms the day before to attend zodiac hotel (fomerly diamond hotel) for free, so i booked. Sms claimed rnb, house was to be played. Since cheryl liked her rnb and I my house, I booked a guestlist

About Zodiac Hotel on saturday nights: Located on Pitt St opposite Arthouse hotel. 20 dollar cover charge unless you enter via guestlist before 10:30. On entering, you are faced with quite a sizeable dance floor taking half the space. This is the house area. A quarter of the floor was a walled area for rnb and separate bar. The last quarter was a carpeted area occupied by lounges.

Timeline:

10:20 got in no troubles. No line either. There was already quite the line for kink@arthouse on the opposite side of the road.

pioneers: There was a 30th birthday party going on in the small room, rnb being played. We couldn’t get in there until midnight. Looking at the house floor, we were the first ones there and it looked desolate. Great.

False advertising space: Posters around the walls advertised $3 shots from 10 to midnight, wow! I ordered 5 cowboys (heath ledgers I like to call them) and took out my 20…. “..that will be 40 dollars”. What the hell!?!? 8 dollars each. Fuck. The offer must be for non mixed shots.

The music playing is house and is really good, but the lack of crowd worries me. We speak to one of the people to see if it is ok to enter the rnb room. He says they don’t play rnb. We look at the poster which does not mention rnb to be played that night. So much for that sms.

Hanh goes to the other bar and orders 5 tequila shots. 15 dollars you expect. But no, another $40 slap. This is madness! We took our shots and we left.

Lasted about 40 minutes at zodiac, and never got to find out if it picked up an audience later that night.

Summary: Good house electro beats, but a lack of crowd makes it a lonely lonely place. False advertising for drinks and sms promotions made it also a bitter place.

THE SPANISH CLUB

Background: free entry, last time they played rnb, so why not

About the Spanish club: located off George st near 3 wise monkeys, the name says it all. it’s a restaurant that plays music late at night where the tables are cleared off the floor. Salsa music plays at this time of night. Older type of crowd.

Timeline: we came, we saw, we heard, then we left.

PAVILLION HOTEL

Being just at the pav the night before (see previous post) I wasn’t expecting much of a crowd.

11.20 : Free entry as usual, we were surprised to see the dancefloor packed full of people dancing!

Rnb was being played, and cheryl liked it. I liked it. Hanh didn’t like it. Didn’t understand why though, as the dj was belting out some great rnb tunes. We left around midnight to the very place we did not want to go to…

BAMBOO – Martin Place Bar

About: martin place bar by day, tables and stools are cleared to form a narrow stretch of wooden dance floor. This makes the nights always crowded and probably more fun. There is also an outdoor area for smokers and their regular Saturday bbq. Standard entry is $20 unless you guestlist and enter before 10:30. Crowd is predominantly asian. Music is purely rnb.

Timeline:

midnight: arrival. The girls have free entry, as they know one of the organisers. They suck up and score us boys a free entry VIP pass in. sweet.

The door bitch: everyone enters before me without a hitch. I flash my free entry pass and I’m promptly told “15 dollars please!”. Hey, this is not a discount pass.. its a free entry vip one! What a jib. I pay and go in.

12.30 onwards:

We dance, we prance. I’m wearing hanh’s winter jacket hood only giving me a sort of eskimo look. It gets attention and I keep it on.

Oh my god!!!

I am slithering through the crowd. 2 girls I slither by decide to pull my hood off. I look at both and scream “oh my god!!!”. They both laugh and scream back “oh m god!!”. I yell it back, and they yell omg back again. This Is the most simple yet crazy coversation ever in a while. We laugh and I comment that I’d dance with them later. I depart.

Jason defends his ground.

A brief history of jason: There is a well known dancer who frequents the asian rnb scene named jason. His label is “the solo korean dancer”. His signature move seems to be bending over and wiggling his butt. Every saturday that I have been to bamboo, he is there. It’s his home of calling. If you have bee, you know who i’m talking about. He is also a podium hog, but loves to entertain with his moves. I tried to shake his hand once and tell him how good of a dancer he was, but he totally ignored me.

Back to the jason story: jason is dancing and two guys join him on the podium and push him off. Jason is pissed. He can’t believe someone is stealing his spot on the podium. a small fight happens but is broken up. Jason will never give his his little podium spot without a fight. So jason stands up on the podium, and for the next minute or so pulls moves out of his ass like no tomorrow. Omg a dance off? It could only be described as magical. It was a piece of raw art. He went left, right, upside down, everywhere. He finished off with his signature butt move while glaring at the wannabe podium stealer. The other guy stands and laughs, knowing he can’t beat that jason. Jason takes the podium and resumes dancing. He needs to get out of bamboo and into other places.

Omg girls part ii: the omg girls found me and they took off my eskimo outfit. We trade omg screams at each other. Then they push me into the middle of a dance circle. What the! I had to pull some moves quick, or face shame. I grab th eskimo jacket and do some cancanesque moves with it. The circle loves it. Then I grab the jacket and attempt to marry a girl borat style (remember the wedding sack?). everyone is laughing, except my victim who is feebly yelling for her life. That was fun.

Shortly after security told me to take it off. Poo.

Djs are too predictable

The dj plays some crap song. I talk to an who isn’t dancing. We discuss the song and whinge about how pavillion had better music. An predicts the dj will cut off the chorus and let the crowd sing it (the song is “I wanna dance with somebody”). Funnily enough, the dj cuts the noise at the chorus and lets the crowd sing the line. Has clubbing gone too predictable?

I the make a prediction that the dj will play sexual healing next, and what do you know?? “sexual healing” starts playing!! I’m going to be sick. This is way too predictable..

I like repetitive music

bamboo likes to switch djs. The djs like to not tell each other what songs they play. Result: doubling, and even tripling up of songs played. this really put me off whee a song was doubled up and it happened throughout the night.

Finally we went home, and I spotted some ugly chicks from the car. They waved at me. Then I realized it was the omg chicks from earlier. I mustve been drunk

Summary: bamboo is great to pick up asians but not to dance unless you take the podium and can tolerate repetitive rnb

Pictures up at http://picasaweb.google.com.au/jamestran84/070602ClubCrawl

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Background:
Me, Joe and Cindee were looking for a cheap place to get wasted. It was either going to be Maloneys or Pavillion. Since Maloneys was too ‘regular’ for us, we went to the Pav top level.

About The Pavillion
Located on George St, theres two levels to the Pavillion. The lower level has a pokies area, bar and pool tables. Pretty small.

The upper level is half dance floor half tables & chairs, and a pool table or two in a corner. A constant green laser light show is played on the floor with smoke machine. Music played tonight was RnB/Pop.

Entry is free and unrestricted.

Atmosphere
Mixed crowd of all nationalities. Most are there for a cheap drink including us. On entering the top level, the music is pumping. The main seating area to have your drinks is very dark. Perfect for couples who like to canoodle to very loud music. Main emphasis was on people enjoying their cheap drinks.

Rough Timeline
9pm: drinking
Drinking never was so much fun when cheaply done. Nobody is on the dance floor is dead but the music is loud and proud.

10.30ish
We are sloshed. There are a few souls on the floor and we head to the floor and dance. Joe is hopeless at dancing but is enjoying it.. Cindee is in the same boat but looks to have more clubbing experience than Joe and is also enjoying. Much fun !

11.30ish
Cindee’s boy picks her up and its me and Joe. The dance floor now looks crowded but we still have enough room to enjoy. A group of 3 asian girls to my left are dancing as well. There is also an asian 2some of girls to my right. Both groups are definitely checking us out. Suddenly one of the big girls on the left goes up to Joe and jiggles her stuff in front of him. Joe is mortified, and I’m laughing.

I beckon Joe to another area of the dance floor. He wants to stay. He is attached to the 2some. He is doing the “dancing close to the group of girls behind one of them but not talking” kinda move and it sorta looks creepy !

I go away and come back. Joe informs me that he went right up to one of the girls he was dance-stalking and right up asked for her number. He was obviously 1: rejected, and 2: drunk.

Meanwhile the DJ is playing some great rnb tunes

12.00am- 12.15am:
Still me and Joe. Suddenly two pretty blondes cut in between us, and dance with us. It wasnt really a dance. They basially had their arms out to the side, and were shaking their chests. Can’t complain.

Suddenly a loud ‘WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY FRIENDS!!!????’ yell comes from nowhere. I turn around and this psycho bitch is yelling at me “WHAT ARE YOU DOING ?!” she repeats, as though I was some deaf rapist. She has two boys with her. I automatically assume she was jealous of her not having a dance buddy. I place my hands on her shoulder and she pushes me back. Whoa.. I never knew it was possible to go out clubbing and have your rags at the same time. The two blondes split from us, and I look at Joe. He’s laughing at me, and indicates a Hi-5 as though it was nothing. I hi-5 him back and we keep dancing, but eventually leave as we have to catch the train home.

Summary
Great seedy atmosphere. Mixed crowd, generally friendly. Lots of couples and groups. DJ plays the right songs for the general crowd looking for their pop/rnb fix. Unfortunately the dancefloor crowd only peaks for an hour or so before dying down again or girls begin to head home.

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