Clubbing with James Tran

I won two tickets to Good vibrations 2010 in a 25 words or less competition. ( I wrote a very clever line which I shall keep secret ). Matty made me enter the competition, so I gave the second ticket to him as reward. It was pretty hot midday so we bought some sombreros and awesome hologram sunnies at Market City and suddenly we were ready – so here we go!

Good Vibrations Festival @ Centennial Park

Assessment Time: 16:00 – 22:00 (closing time)
Website: http://www.gvf.com.au
Address: Centennial Park Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Anything goes, no dress code.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Prepaid tickets were $145 each. I won tickets to the show today.
Inside: There were 5 official big areas for the acts to appear. There were also 2 smaller sponsored areas for dancing as well.
Cloak Room: $5 per item
Bar: $8 light beers, $10 smirnoffs. Thanks to the cool weather, there weren’t so many people lining up for a bar, and we had some booze in our hands within 3 minutes of lining up.
Bathroom Line: Appalling at about 20 minutes
Acts: Salt-N-Pepa, Armand Van Helden, DJ Crazee, Aston Shuffle were the main acts we visited today. Other acts included Busta Rhymes, Naughty by Nature. The Killers and Friendly Fires (I was dying to see Friendly Fires) had pulled out of the Sydney show.
Music: A mix of Indie Rock, Hip Hop, and House
Atmosphere: Despite the pullouts, the atmosphere was buzzing throughout the whole day. People are everywhere and its quite good. Later in the early evening it starts to rain but not too hard, but it rains enough for people to get out their ponchos. Instead of being a downer, people embrace the rain and keep dancing and singing along. The rain is also a huge welcome as earlier it was pretty stinking hot earlier in the afternoon.

Videos:

Salt-N-Pepa : Let’s talka bout Sex + Man Dancing on Tent

Everyone is cheering for this guy more than Salt N Pepa – hilarious – The poor guy was most likely kicked out, but for immortal fame in the eyes of thousands? Sure, why not.

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Desperately looking for a club to hit for Christmas Eve, and a lot of clubs are not open.. except for Flow, who are holding a once off Thursday event… nice – so here we go! Flow Fridays @ World Square Pub (WSP): Thursday 24th December 2009 Assessment Time: 11:30 – 3:30am Website: http://www.flowfridays.com.au Address: 680 George St Sydney (Formerly Equilibrium) Dress Code: Casual / Smart Casual. Girls wore dresses, and most guys wore nice shoes with collared shirts. Door Policy: Tight on the female/male ratio. Bring girls with you if you are a guy wanting to get in. Many a man hath been rejected from Flow for being alone or by grouping with his fellow man. This in turn helps with atmosphere Guestlist: See website Cover Charge / Entry Fee: $10 tonight for all patrons. Only for tonight, as there was less patronage on Christmas Eve/ Thursdays. Inside: The Flow event is only held upstairs. It’s a small room for 200 or so people. Cloak Room: None Bar: $5 Gin and Tonics DJ: Typical Asian RnB DJs on rotation Music: RnB Crowd: Entirely Asian. Entertainment: Not even an MC tonight, so it was just the DJ holding the show together. Atmosphere: Very dead in the beginning – usually its packed on Fridays, but it *is* christmas eve. Around midnight it still isn’t packed, but it is getting busy. At around 1am the place is definitely very packed now, which was pretty good. (continue reading…)

I’ve always wanted to go back to Favela. With Privilege Bar closed, their Friday RnB nights moved to Favela – It was time to check it out – Dance buddies C and Marty are with me tonight – here we go! Highlife @ Favela Nightclub Sydney Assessment Time: 12:50am – 1:50am Website: http://www.favela.com.au, http://www.paulstrangepresents.com Address: 1 Kellet Way, Potts Point, Sydney Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual ok. Hats were ok in here. Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 Guestlist: send to guestlist@paulstrangepresents.com Inside: This is a two room setup. As you walk in, you will see lounges and a central bar. On the lower level is a tiny dancefloor area for 20 or so people and a DJ. This is where the old school and funky house is playing. There are two separate flights of stairs to go up to the main room. Here is a slightly larger floor for 50 or so people. Bar, DJ, and lounges along the side. There is also a VIP room if you choose to borrow. Cloak Room: None Bar: $4 Tap Beers, $6 House shots. The wait was about 5 minutes for a glass of water. DJs: Moto, Tikelz, Samurai, Mo Funk, Maurice Beats Music: RnB, Hip Hop, Old School, Funky House. No real complaints. Crowd: Mostly white. I think we were the only asians in here. Everyone here is young and good looking. Entertainment: There is an MC in the main room to help out with the atmosphere. The lights help as well. Atmosphere: It was pretty crap throughout the whole place. I heard Saturdays are packed, so I assumed Friday tonight was to be awesome as well. Well, it wasn’t. It was pretty shit. There were no more than 5 people on the dancefloor below, and no more than 10 in the main pit of the dancefloor. Videos: Walkthrough: Video of the ceiling lights: (continue reading…)

Homebake Sydney 2009 @ The Domain Assessment Time: 15:30pm – 11:00pm Opening Times: 12:00pm – 11:00pm Website: http://www.homebake.com.au Address: Royal Botanic Gardens, Mrs Macquaries Road, Sydney. Dress Code: Anything goes. I wore an orange jumpsuit. Everybody else was pretty casual, and being summer, it was lots of shirts, hats and skirts. Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Tickets were $99 Inside: Four or five areas. Most of the big acts were in the two main areas – the Main Stage and the Big Top, which is just a huge tent kind of thing. Food stalls inside, and a merry go round swinging thing. In the middle is a huge grass area to sit down. Plenty of toilets. Cloak Room: $5 Bar: $10 smirnoffs. Lines were extremely long today. Food: Rip off. $5 bottles of water. $7 hot chips, $5 Hot Dogs, $12 Salt and Pepper Squid Acts: Powderfinger, Jet, Hilltop Hoods, Eskimo Joe, Sia, Daniel Merriweather, Midnight Juggernauts, Sarah Blasko, A Special Best Of Performance By Tim Finn, Closure In Moscow, Short Stack, Phrase, Decoder Ring, Bumblebeez, Tumbleweed (Original Line-Up), Eddy Current Suppression Ring,  The Funkoars, The Middle East, The Aston Shuffle, Sugar Army, Record Producer, Shockone Music: It’s all Australian music today. Entertainment: The merry go round provided entertainment, as well as some of the small stores for tattoos or typical carnival like things. In between acts on the main stage, the TV screens would play some funny clips of people rendering their versions of popular songs. Crowd: Dominantly White Australian. I probably spotted a total of 7 or 8 other asians the whole day. Atmosphere: Throughout the day the good weather provided a very good atmosphere. This was a sold out event so there were just people everywhere, walking around, doing their thing. There was enough room to find your own spot in the grass and relax as well. The atmosphere at the two main stages was always pretty packed. I would say it was more intense in the Big Top than the main arena – it could have been because the Big Top had more acts which were ‘dance’ or crowd oriented. People in the Big Top were likely to dance and jump up and down. The Main Stage.. people just stood around singing along. (continue reading…)

No real occasion but to just have our fix of clubbing this week.. friends choice – Home Nightclub. Wasn’t too keen as the last time proved only to be very mediocre.. hoping tonight is better  – here we go! Homemade Saturdays @ Home Nightclub Sydney Assessment Time: 11:30pm – 1:45am Website: http://www.homesydney.com Address: Cockle Bay Wharf Dress Code: Casual ok. I wore a t-shirt, jeans and dress shoes. Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Something ridiculous like $25 I think. No thumbprint scanners tonight. Guestlist: Did not submit one, but visit the website to submit a guestlist. Inside: See video. Basically one big room, 3 other dance rooms and a chill out room. Chill out room is not featured in the walkthrough video. Cloak Room: $3 or $4 I think. Memory bad.  Cloak room is not advertised, but is it at the end of the main room bar, right next to the speakers. DJ: Same DJ as last time here on a Satuday. Don’t know his name but he’s bald, and hates guys dancing up on the front podium. Music: Electro/Commercial house in main room, old school rnb upstairs. See video. Crowd: Mixed. Even mix of asian, caucasian, black, white, whatever. Atmosphere: Very good and vibing tonight. Packed for a change. It was pissing down raining outside, so there might be a correlation there. Entertainment: Front podium dancers and MC to keep it going. (continue reading…)