Jesus with worshippers at Bamboo

Bamboo @ Martin Place Bar – 17th July 2010
Assessment Time: 11:00PM – 04:00AM
Opening Hours: 10:30 PM- 04:00AM
Lockout: None
Website: http://www.urbanagent.com.au , http://www.martinplacebar.com.au
Address: 51 Martin Place, Corner of Elizabeth Street Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual allowed. Half the dudes are smart casual, and the other half are just.. casual. Girls are all in dresses and wearing their faces. Lots of pretty girls. And they’ve relaxed policy somewhat – they have allowed hats to be worn inside!
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free entry all night if you wore white. Otherwise standard cover charges apply. $20 on guestlist before midnight. Free on guesetlist if you get to the counter before 10:30 (small chance), and $25 after midnight.
Guestlist: eric@urbanagent.com.au
Occurence: Every Saturday only.
Inside: Walk into a small bar to hold about 150 or so people – DJ at the front corner. Bar on the right hand side of the venue,taking up half of the floor space. 4 podiums are dotted along the length of the dancefloor, including one with a dancing pole. Small private area at back but was really open to anyone who walked in. Outdoor smoking and BBQ area on the left of the venue.
Cloak Room: $5 for all items.
Bar: I can’t remember. 3 ABC shots for $36 ?
Music: Primarily Hip Hop / RnB tonight. Top 40 and Commerical House mashup as well. DJ’s are mixing it well, keeping the crowd always active and dancing.
Crowd: Dominantly Asian. I spotted 2 white girls, 3 black guys as the minorities here tonight. There were probably a few more handful of the minorities. Age wise it varied, but most people I met were in their early 20′s. It seems as all the teens have gone to Funky. Bad news in a few years time for Bamboo as they would soon have no base.
Entertainment:Theme tonight was White. White balloons all over the place. MC to keep things going. Podium dancers, but only one or two. BBQ outside to feed your tummy. Similar to Shanghai Nights (well, it is the same promoter)
Atmosphere: At its peak, the place is extremely packed, and you would be hard pressed to find some floor space to dance – you would really need to hop up on the podiums to have your own dance action. Outside of peak periods it was still pretty busy. Most of the crowd are singing along to the songs, so pretty vibrant.
Video: 360 of Bamboo @ Martin Place Bar (at the back)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jesus have a hairband

My hair got caught up
My wig hair is about shoulder length. Bamboo is a very very packd event. Inevitably my hair got caught up in many peoples zipper jackets, and it was pretty annoying. Also while dancing, the hair would get caught in the rings that girls were wearing. Pretty annoying for the girl, but I found it funny.

Balloons are not fun
Someone tied up three balloons to the back of my hair. For a fleeting moment I had the insane idea of repeating what I did last year at Bligh Bar, but quickly brushed it away. Anyway, the balloons on my hair didn’t last long – after they got entangled in one of the chandeliers, I had to manually undo it from my hair. It was an embarrasing look, standing in the middle of the dancefloor undoing these balloons.

I fooled one girl
Girl: “Can I wear your wig?”
James: “its real”
Girl: “nah, its not!” (tugs the wig and by sheer luck, it manages to stay on in place ) “OH MY GOD IT IS REAL! I’m so sorry I pulled it!”
James: “Yup”

Girls who look like who they have seen Jesus. Oh wait…
You walk around and a girl turns around. She look and YELLS IN HORROR like she saw a ghost. It happened twice. It really is amazing how scary I look, right? haha. I love this outfit.

Pole dancing
There is Korean looking chick who has taken pole dancing classes. Look at the pic and look at the crowd, all amazed at her style. Show off, but I must admit, it was hypnotizing.

Upside down pole dancer shows off

Multiple podiums (The Jason effect)
Last year when I went to bamboo, they had 2 small podiums, and one would always be dominated by Jason, the resident Korean bum dancer. Tonight, they have installed four podiums. I do suspect that it was a mitigation against podium hogs, and it has worked – you can dance on one podium and people around you will love you, but other dancers on the other end of the club are staring at their own podium. Focus is mostly on the pole dancing podium, to see what tricks people can get upto on it.

Standard dance moves while wearing robes or looking like Jesus
If you ever find yourself in the presence of a Jesus lookalike, or wearing holy robes, here are some holy moves that I discovered that would certainy send a message to the heavens above to let them know you ain’t gonna stop partying in heaven:

- The prayer: Simple yet effective, clasp your hands together in a prayer position. From here, keep your hands together and move up and down. Bend over for effect. For variation, move hands in a circle or above your head to move to a Thai / Egyptian style dance.

- The Hallelujah: A bit more daring, and effective with robes. Both hands in a diagonal manner away from your body, and pump them up and down at the elbows, with palms open, reaching for the sky. It’s a real crowd pleaser if you are up on stage, as it is very easy to follow. See images above on demonstation.

- The Holy Whip: Again, a robe only dance move, and the ad-hoc adaptation of the classic wind up your towel and whip the other dude. Grab a part of your robe that is dangling off and hold it about 1 metre up from the base. Lift it up and fling it quickly back and forth onto a persons buttocks. Perform the fling quicker for a better ‘ouch’ effect.

Here’s a video of me dancing

Click here to view the embedded video.

Really really packed. ugh.
During the hour at around 11:30PM until about 1:30AM the main dancefloor is undanceable. You stand in the dancefloor trying to dance, but you end up just letting people through your circle or bumping into other people. You either would have to dance at the far back where it was boring, or way at the front, where it was similarly away from the action. However it was still somewhat danceable.

I saw my cousin!
Ran into my cousin. He’s 23 and engaged already. His fiance was there as well. He couldn’t believe what I was wearing. His best friend was there who met me before, but I had no idea who he was, haha. Anyway we had a chat and he asks where my girl was. I pointed to a girl I met at the bar – he understood the bro code and pushed me back to her. I love him.

Too hard to hold a conversation
Being as awesome as Gandalf the white has its downsides. Primarily that I could not hold a converation with any person – male or female for longer than 5 minutes. I would have someone else run up and tell me how awesome they thought my outfit was or how they wanted a photo. How could I not take these compliments or photo opportunities. Many thought I was working here. Aww hell no!! A girl even asked for my business card. It got me dreaming of a business card – it’ll be one of those cards that when you open up, would play a random RnB or House tune in similar vein to classic old school mobile phone tunes! Awesome:

CLUBBING WITH JAMES TRAN
‘THAT GUY WHO NEEDS A LIFE’
Nightclub and event reviews at:
www.JamesTran.net

Hmm.. I like it! I might go make some.. they’re not expensive to make. Watch this space.

Arrivederci
Kicked out at closing time. Place had about 20 people still in it when they finally kicked us out.

Post mortem
Busted by someone who saw me at the last white party
Outside Verandah Bar: JAMES! JAMES!! He screams. Who the fuck is this guy coming up to me?
JAMES!! YOU’RE WEARING THE SAME OUTFIT AGAIN!
Oh shit. Totally busted. It was a guy who I met at the I Heart Uni White Party a few months ago. I remembered him and we had a good old chat. Luckily nobody at Bamboo came up to say they recognized me

Recommendation
It’s a nice place to meet people, but its way too squashy to dance during peak hours.

Bamboo @ Martin Place Bar – 6.5/10

Me with one of the fans in the attempt to keep the temperature cool

It’s my birthday weekend, but I really didn’t plan anything for Saturday. A friend has invited me to Sanctuary Hotel – The last time I walked in, the air con wasn’t working correctly for large crowds and it became stuffy and overheated. Since then I have been assured things were ‘fixed’. So let’s check it out – here we go!

Funky (Buddha) @ Sanctuary Hotel
Assessment Time: 12:15AM to 02:45AM
Opening Hours: 10:30 – Unknown
Lockout: None
Website: http://www.funkybuddha.com.au, http://www.phatentertainment.com.au
Address: 545 Kent St - Corner of Liverpool and Kent St, Sydney. Behind 3 wise monkeys.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual ok. Hats allowed.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 standard. $20 on guestlist before midnight. 
Guestlist: info@phatentertainment.com.au
Occurence: Every Saturday Night.
Inside: The entrance is not at the normal Sanctuary Hotel entrance. It is via the TAB area further along on Kent St. The room upon entry is where people can have a chat and chill out without actually going outside. Walk in further to the main area, and the large carpeted room has been converted to a dancefloor. DJ on the wall, and a 3 tier podium smack in the middle, dividing the room into two halves. Bar along the far back wall.
Cloak Room: Cloak room is located upon entry. Not utilized tonight but I would imagine it to be the same rip off pricing as of previous nights at the previous Verandah Bar venue.
Bar: Did not utilize tonight, but the wait was a bit longer than usual. Line was 2 or 3 deep. Bar closed altogether at 2:30AM, in a safe assumption that too many fights spoil the bar.
Music: RnB, Pop and some House mashup
Crowd: Mostly Asian. Mostly teenagers or early 20′s. You can tell via the baby faces and hair styles. I fit right in.
Entertainment: Podium dancers throughout the night. It’s good enough.
Atmosphere: It’s setup to encourage lots of dancing, which is good. The humidity of the last time I was here is gone – Fans are installed and air con is setup just right for a danceable experience. People are not as friendly but what else do you expect from 18 year olds. Carpeted area gives the place a more friendly vibe as well as the second room to allow people a breather is also good. It’s also pretty busy on the dancefloor itself, enough to have your own dance, but not sardine packed.

Podium dancer - Funky @ Sanctuary Hotel

Fights: I saw two fights break out tonight. One you may see typically at a club, but two in one night is bad. Ha. Teenage angst and alcohol.
Videos:

Walkthrough of the dancefloor area. 

Click here to view the embedded video.

360 View

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline:
The world cup
It only comes every 4 years. Tonight it was Australia vs Ghana. I sat for the majority of the match in the secondary room watching the game with my fellow clubbers. I know, it wasn’t utilizing the most of my $25 but I have to watch it. It was really upsetting to see Kewell red carded. Very unfair.

This definitely deserved a red card
So after the match I am trying to get through the crowd, but I face a wall of some dancers. I stand there for a few seconds waiting for a gap to open up so that I could continue on. A girl behind me pushes me. Ok, I was near their group so I step back a bit but I still can’t go through. Then, ANOTHER SHOVE from the same group, this time more violent – as if to tell me to fuck off already. HEY – IM JUST TRYING TO WALK THROUGH, AND COINCIDENTALY STANDING NEXT TO YOU GIRLS. I AM NOT EVEN LOOKING AT YOU. WHY SHOVE ME FOR?? Fuck you, fucking teenagers.

Used the birthday card
Was getting bored, and there was a circle of about 8 girls just dancing away. So I asked marty to jump in the middle and dance. He said no. I used my birthday card and forced him to go. He agrees and jumps in and dances. Great! It works and we all start dancing for my birthday. I think they were laughing at us rather than with us when we were dancing.

We have a fan from a previous clubbing night
An area in the back opened up and we go back to dance. Another dude joins us, and I shake his hand after. He says he met us last time at Macquarie Hotel! I don’t remember him at all, but if he knows where I was in the past, then I believe him. It’s been a while since I’ve been recognized randomly- I was starting to miss it.

Arrivederci
Left just before 3:00AM from being bored. The place was beginning to die down ratio wise.

Recommendation
This is not such a bad place to go, and a definite improvement on Verandah Bar. Do keep in mind its Asian teeny bopper night here if you are of the older classy type. Seeings two fight break outs in the short time I was here was a little disturbing, but that is expected in any club with young people.

Funky @ Sanctuary Hotel – 6/10

Macquarie Hotel, Liverpool Sydney

I’ve never been to Liverpool – There’s three clubs I know of in this area – Collingwood, NOX and Macquarie. A friend constantly raves about Macquarie Hotel, so I rounded up some local friends, and off we went – Here we go!

Pure @ Macquarie Hotel Sydney
Assessment Time: 11:30PM – 03:00AM
Opening Hours: Unknown – 03:00AM
Lockout: No lockout
Website: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=226724078936 , http://www.macquariehotelliverpool.com.au/
Address: 269 Macquarie St, Liverpool Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual shirts and casual shoes allowed, and is what almost all the guys are wearing. Girls are dressed up and looking pretty. Hats are not allowed to be worn inside.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free all night.
Guestlist: None.
Inside: Walk inside to the gaming area. Bar to the right for the area. Keep walking into the main bar area where the bar is also to the right. Bar area has various tables and chairs, and is carpeted. Following up is a strip of patch and a set of lounges. Past the row of lounges is the dancefloor, with overhead convertible roof. Dancefloor to hold about 150 people. Side room to the left for smoking, if the overhead roof was closed. There is also a secondary entrance on the right corner of the dancefloor. See video for more.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: $7.50 for a shot of tequila.
DJs: DJ Dee.
Music: RnB all night, with about 20 minutes of house/trance from 02:30-02:50AM
Crowd: The majority of people here are asian. There are pockets of wogs and other nationalities. Most people are local asian teenagers. There are some older folk well in their 20′s but were the minority.
Entertainment: MC to keep things going
Atmosphere: The dancefloor was pretty much packed the entire night, but too packed – pretty much Bamboo like. The rest of the club was also bustling the entire time. Kind of dark as well, which was good in a way. People are smoking everywhere on the dancefloor thanks to the open roof. You are unable to escape it.
Video Walkthrough:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline:

I’m not a teenage dirtbag
One of our friends is 19, and when she walked into the club with us, probably every 3rd person she saw said hello to her. Far out, this was land of the teens, and there was no end to it. Most of the asians here looked underage or barely legal, but luckily I have braces to fit in, ahaha. But yeah, this place is Asian Teen Central!

Back when I was your age
It was only a few years ago when people were allowed to smoke in clubs. Here, I was surprised to walk in and see people smoking in the middle and around the dancefloor! What the ?? Of course, I look up and the roof is partially open – it’s enough to warrant the area to be an outdoor area and to allow smokers to smoke, and more importantly, stay inside the club. I absolutely hate it because at the end of the night my skin and clothes are drenched in the smell of cigarette ash.

Security is everywhere
There is security everywhere. Was this place prone to fights? It’s a possibility, considering we had to be scanned to get in.. as well as the crowd being asian teens, and the locality of this place, being in Liverpool.

We are only allowed to dance on the dancefloor
We are having a little dance at the bar. Security man comes up and warns us that we are not allowed to dance here, and that we can only stand up normally at the bar. Man, far out! This place is strict.

So between the dancefloor and the bar area behind, there is a strip of tiled patch about 1 metre wide. We dance there instead, but within secondsm we are shooed away by the security personnel and told to dance on the dancefloor. My god, there is actually a dedicated security person to shoo away people from this little narrow path! I have a good look at him for 5 minutes and that is all he does the entire night – telling people to get off the tiled floor. He waves his water bottle around as his instrument of shoo-ing. Amazing job, but someone has to do it. Given, this area would have been way too packed to move around if that path was not there, not that it’s not packed enough already as it is.

Video: A very packed crowd singing along to Justin Beiber: (shameful)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Photo with DJ
DJ Dee actually came down and put her headphones on me for this quick pic. Awesome.

DJ Dee at Liverpool club Macquarie Hotel

Not allowed to touch her ass
Chatting to 2 fat girls at the bar. One fat girl told me off for touching her friends ass. Now I swear to whoever god you believe in, I did not touch her ass. I had no reason to! 5 minutes later, the accuser is randomly making out with a random horny dude, and he is touching her ass. DOUBLE STANDARDS BITCH!

Jockeys can dance
Near the end of the night there was a tiny bit of room for everyone. We met a white Aussie jockey and he danced with us. He was a tall jockey, but still shorter than me =) He wanted to go to Collingwood or NOX afterwards. Tempting, but I have friends to drive home. Booyah.

with Jockey man, Marty

Arrivederci
Left at 3:00AM where they kicked us all out.

Recommendation
It appears that this event is only promoted every few weeks, so do check if it is on before coming, otherwise you will catch Macquarie on a ‘dead’ night (so I have been told) and not enjoy your night. Otherwise if you are in the Liverpool area and can’t be bothered to go to the city for your rnb fix, it’s worth checking out, and since it’s free entry, there is nothing to lose. Probably the big downer for me tonight was the open smoking policy inside. This can’t be helped, as I assume that if the top roof was closed, then the place would have been stuffy as hell.

Pure @ Macquarie Hotel – 6.5/10

Fever Nightclub Wollongong NSW (Bluenote) - taken from the corner of the dancefloor

Tonight I am in wollongong with friends to check out the clubs. We were on our way to Hostage X or Illawara Hotel for the final club of the night, after visiting The Harp, Ivory and Glasshouse. It’s already 2am and locals have told us Hostage X was dead, and that Illawarra Hotel closes in one hour. This pretty much ended our night.. except there *was* one club left still open after 3am – This club was named Fever (It was formerly known as but still constantly referred to as The Blue Note / Bluenote)… it plays RNB, and apparently gets packed once all other clubs close – so we realy don’t have a choice – so here we go!

Saturdays @ Fever Nightclub (Formerly Blue Note / The Bluenote)
Assessment Time: 02:00AM – 04:00AM
Opening Hours: Unknown (apparently opens late) – 05:00AM
Lockout: None
Website: No website found.
Address: Corner of Station St and Pacific Highway, Wollongong, NSW.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual OK. Hats are not allowed to be worn.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $10 all night
Guestlist: None
Inside: Walk upstairs two or three flights of stairs to arrive to the nightclub, which holds about 160 people. Dancefloor to the far right corner, bar on the left, and lounges on the furthest left corner. Dancefloor is a flashy neon-based dancefloor. Check out the video for footage, its quite sizeable and this is where the dancing is concentrated at.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: Did not drink at this venue.
Music: Purely RNB as far as I can remember. Mix of contemporary and old school.
Crowd: Mostly locals, and almost all of them have come from other clubs and bars in the area. Asians, Samoans, Aussies, Indians, Euros.
Entertainment: Big flashing dancefloor! Biggest flashing one I’ve seen in a long time. (ok, I haven’t seen that many)
Atmosphere: Dead at first, but it picks up at around 3am, when all the other clubs close, and Fever / The Blue Note is the last place within 100KM’s that is still open and belting out the beats.
Video: Walkthrough into Fever Nightclub

Click here to view the embedded video.

Video: 360 of Fever Nightclub including flashing dancefloor

Click here to view the embedded video.

Relax… *deep breath* – ‘Dear dude with one dance move’…
FUCK! IF YOU WANT PEOPLE LOOKING AT YOU AT LEAST LEARN MORE THAN ONE MOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ONE MOVE = ANNOYING MUCH?

Fun for the whole Family
We met a samoan girl hanging out with her Auntie. Her Auntie has been banished by security to sit in the corner. Yes, there is a punishment corner in the club, which has a bench, for where drunk people sit down and sober up. What a concept. Well that is what I was told. They await for 9 more of their Samoan relatives to come to the club. Man, I didn’t know clubs in Wollongong were family friendly. I may yet take my mum clubbing sometime.

Drunk Auntie
Auntie is easily the most visible drunk in the club.
Case 1: Auntie pulls someone on the dancefloor and walks backwards, pushing everybody out of the way. I didn’t see her coming and she just literally smashed me off balance as she started to dance.
Case 2: As she sat down on the lounge, I see her literally sit on Marty, not knowing he was there. The poor guy, getting squished.

I see asians, but they don’t wanna talk
I saw asians. Being wollongong, there are not many in this area, so I went up to talk to them. She was the most unfriendly Asian I had ever met! haha. She did not want to talk to me or anything. Of all girls to pick, I picked the unfriendliest one. Sigh.

The dance off that lasted 1 second. I won!
I am dancing away, and suddenly another asian girl stomps on right up and starts to stomp her feet and wave her arms like a mad woman, dancing away. IT WAS ON!! But the moment she strided in to dance with me, her foot slipped … and she landed extremely hard on her ass. I was too busy laughing to help her, but eventually I helped her up, and for the rest of the night she couldn’t really dance. Whose fault was it that her arse is now injured – hers for wanting to dance with me, or mine for dancing so well that she wanted to dance with me? I blame her for wearing heels.

Arrivederci
So tired from dancing and drinking, so we left.

Recommendation
Avoid this club before 3AM as it is a deadhole. However do come here after 3AM if you still have the energy.

Saturdays @ Fever Nightclub (Formerly The Blue Note / Bluenote):
1/10 (before 3AM),

6.5/10 (after 3AM)

The Bank Nightclub

Addiction (Final Night) @ The Bank Nightclub, Kings Cross, Sydney
Assessment Time: 11:00PM – 01:30AM, 02:00AM – 03:45AM
Opening Hours: 10:00PM – 04:00AM (closing time uncertain)
Lockout: None
Website: http://www.thebanknightclub.com.au , http://www.meentertainment.com.au
Address:42 Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual ok. Hats are ok. It’s mostly urban here with the guys, and the women are all dressed up.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20. Free before 10pm and discount after, if on the guestlist.
Guestlist: info@meentertainment.com.au
Inside: The venue itself is definitely suave with the feel of elegance. Dark polished wood everywhere, carpeted lounge areas. Ground level holds the narrow but long dancefloor for 150 or so people. Upstairs overhangs a balcony / 2nd tier lounge dance area but it is closed off for tonight. Bar is on the right with a shelf of alcohol which adorns side wall. So many bottles of Jagermeister
Cloak Room:None offered
Bar: $5 for most drinks before 11pm. Standard prices thereafter.
DJs: I don’t know but at one point they had DJ’s at the same time, albiet alternatively spinning and mixing into each other’s songs instead of playing at the same time.
Music: Hip Hop and RNB, mostly on the Hip hop side of things. Usually at the RnB club , you would hear Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre west coast rap at 2am – tonight it was being blazed out at 11pm. It may not be for everyone. I do like my hip hop, but there were some songs that I didnt know either. There were multiple moments where Marty and I considered leaving the club due to a questionable or unknown song being played by the DJ, but since we already paid $20 to get in, we stayed another song. Also throughout the night a random house song would be played out as well. It was a mind fuck, and not in a good way. Also near closing time, the DJ was guilty of playing songs a second time, even thought it was a different DJ. – totally wrong
Crowd:Initially an even mix of aussies, wogs / euros, and black / african people. There are also a handful of asians. Ages were probably 20′s or older. There did not seem to be any policy or any pretension in this place. Later on in the night approaching 2-3am, the crowd becomes a ratio of 50% black african and 50% everyone else. Some of the girls left were hot so it kept us staying. Shameless.
Entertainment:MC to keep the vibe going throughout the night. No other entertainment. At one point in the night, 2 DJ’s were playing , switching songs with each other, which was something I hadn’t seen before at a club.
Atmosphere:Initially at entering at 11pm, it’s pretty good and everyone is dancing, which is bloody surprising. Hopes are up, however it doesn’t really get any busier, and stays at the busy state throughout the night, which is still good. In terms of friendliness, it was dark enough to dance on your own, but since it was such a small dancefloor cross-area, you are always under the eyes of someone as you dance.
Video Walkthrough of The Bank Nightclub

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline:

Dancing
Well you know it’s quite busy here. Enough so to not have enough space to freely dance, but not packed enough to be sardines – Marty and I are isolated to the sidelines where we can jump around and do all kinds of immature things. People in our area look at us bemused and in wonder. Nobody dares to challenge either of us in a dance off. This place was too classy for that.

Random pash in hallway
Random girl kisses me in the hallway after I take a photo of her. I liked it.

girls from campbelltown – i dont even bother.
I stand and take photos of the place. Random girls next to me offer to take a photo. Sure! I take photos with them. They are from campbelltown, and they’re the largest girls in the club. Except for one hot one, but she is pashing some other dude. I am nice and talk to one of them, but she ignores me. DOG. I turn to the other and talk, and she genuinely tries to hear me but can’t hear a word that I’m saying. I give up and leave after 3 tries.

Mini arrivederci
We left temporarily as the music was just getting a bit annoying, and to also visit Club 77, to see if it had picked up. It didn’t, and we returned half an hour later.

It’s a blackwash
Later as time goes by, the ratio of black men to non-black men increase, to the point where looking along the bar, it was just a sea of black men leaning back against the bar with drinks in their hand. An interesting sight.

Even fatties wont dance with me
By this point in time its 2:00AM, and most of the girls left here are the unwanted ones. There is a good ratio of 1:7:2 – that is, 1 Girl for every 7 black men and 2 other non-black men. Well, since the girls are dancing, I tried my luck with two fatties. They just look at me as I do my little dance. I stop Marty and drag him over and he dances as well. They don’t seem to be impressed. JESUS how could they resist such awesomeness? Maybe their skin was really that thick.

Arrivederci
The rest of the night was spent dancing alone until we leave

Recommendation
The Bank as a venue is quite good. The event was alright for a Friday night but could have done with more people. More people and the opening of upstairs would have done this place justice. I only found out today that it was indeed the last night of this event, and the promoters have since moved to the new O2 nightclub on Pitt St (I will have to check this out soon). As a result of this being a closing night, no rating shall be given for the event, but for The Bank as a venue itself, I would be keen to visit it another time, when other event is on. It is nice and classy enough to avoid too much trouble and what not.

Asian Night at Havana - Thursday 1st April 2010

Good Friday is on tomorrow and all the clubs in Sydney are closed that day, so they are open Thursday night in lieu… Just left Space with Derelict, to meet up with Marty and some other female friends, so here we go!

Candy Dreams Lingerie Party @ Havana Club de Luxe

Assessment Time: Midnight – 02:30am
Opening Hours: 10:30pm – 03:00am
Website: http://www.havanaclub.com.au, http://www.teamhkr.com 
Address: 169 oxford st, Darlinghurst Sydney 
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual ok. I had dress shoes, a vest and collared shirt on. Others wore t-shirts and some girls wore corsets tonight. 
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25. $20 on guestlist before midnight. I employed use of my free pass from the last week I visited Havana. 
Guestlist: See promoter website 
Inside: Walk upstairs two flights of stairs to the top level of the building, where Havana is. Main dancefloor for 250 or so people, with 3 bars on 3 sides, and DJ on the 4th wall. Lounges and carpeted areas surround the dancefloor.
Cloak Room:$4
Bar: Didn’t drink tonight
Music: RnB with the occasional House mashup
Crowd: Mostly asian with a mix of the others such as euro, aussie. Mostly local.
Entertainment: Podiums in the middle in front of the DJ and next to him. Dancing poles are not installed tonight.
Atmosphere: It was a Thursday, so it wasn’t as packed as a typical Friday night, nethertheless it was still busy enough to keep it away from the status of ‘dead’. Later around 2am it did die down considerably.
Video - 360 View of the main floor around midnight

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline:
It’s a Lingerie Party and well.. where was the lingerie?
Well all my female friends here were dressed in corsets. Altogether in the club I could probably count about 10 or less females in corsets/lingerie including my friends – I wanted to perve on girls who I didn’t know! Nethertheless it was a welcome sight for pervy eyes. A shame there were not more girls dressed skimpily. They should have a club out there that has dress up themes every week! Oh wait.. that’s The Retro.

Girls up on the podium dancing

We busted each other

I went on a date with a girl a two nights ago. Tonight I saw her grinding with some random dude tonight, and she saw me granding with a girl. Our eyes meet, and it was totally not awkward. hahaha.. and yet I wonder why I am single.

The 2 hour grind
After being in the club for 20 minutes the girl who I was dancing with at Space, got bored and followed me here to Havana, and so I did my part and grinded with her and Derelict for about 90-120 minutes.. sandwich style in the middle of the floor. Basically she would face me grinding, and then after a while turn about face and continue. EVERYONE in the club is staring at us. Some are smiling, and some are disgusted. Most are guys of the former category. You would think something further would happen, but it never materialised.

Video: 2 girls up on the podium shaking their stuff

Click here to view the embedded video.

Arrivederci
After the arduous grinding session, the three of us leave. Friends were shaking their heads at me. C’mon, what is wrong with two guys and a girl leaving a club, holding hands?!? Gimme a break!!

Recommendation
Well tonight was a once off Thursday event – but it was better than Flow’s once off event on Christmas Eve – Would come here again. More people would have been better, but this was a pretty good turn out for Thursday – Similar to Space Nightclub – Entry price however should have been cheaper for a Thursday. Flow Thursday last year was only $10.

Candy Dreams @ Havana Club – 6.5/10

Dance Floor area - Tao Nightclub

Just finished watching Mardi Gras. Time for a dance! A friend of a friend has a birthday at none other than Tao, where I had a good time last Saturday for their ‘Satisfaction’ grand opening, so let’s try it again – here we go!

Satisfaction @ Tao Ultra Lounge

Assessment Time: 11:00 – 03:00am
Website: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=288588253950
Address:  396 Pitt St, CNR Goulburn St (Old Mandarin Club)
Dress Code / Door Policy: Dress nice. Tonight even crossdressing asians were allowed. On entering, the security guard warned me to keep my hat off inside. I managed to keep it on inside without being told off.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free for ladies before 11. $10 before midnight on guestlist. $20 full cover charge fee.
Guestlist: Email Satisfaction.saturdays@gmail.com or SMS 0438 889 892
Inside: Beneath the former Mandarin Club (Now Mr B’s Hotel), Tao Ultra Lounge/Bar is a small area split into even smaller areas – A carpeted area where most dancing occurs. It holds 50-80 people. There are two lounge areas on either side of the dancefloor. A DJ is along the wall next to the bar on the wooden area. The wooden floor area is the general ‘lets stand around and chat each other up’ area with bar and some tables and stools.
Cloak Room: $4 per item
Bar: $19 for 2 Carlton Draughts and a Corona. Current promotion is $5 drinks and $16 jugs of beer before midnight.
DJs: Xcentrik, R*One, Normz, Edo, Day-Day
Music: RnB and some house. DJs tonight are MASSIVELY guilty of repeating songs twice over. Even some house songs such as ‘Riverside’ got repeated later in the night. I like that song, but you can see whoever was here earlier for the first iteration of the song stop dancing, and silently groan that they’ve heard this song before.
Crowd: Almost entirely asian. There were handful of white guys with yellow fever (disgusting) and a white girl looking a bit lost, but that was all from what I could see. Asians were all English speaking Australians.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment, just the MC.
Atmosphere: Overall it was a pretty good atmosphere. People are dancing on the carpeted area, and its dark enough to be a bit private. Lounge areas are dark, and the bar is bright for people who just want to mill around. Most importantly its busy, but not sardine packed. It’s a good balance.

360 Video

Click here to view the embedded video.

Keep reading for my encounters with the various girls in here
Timeline

Everyone has a bloody bowtie
This year I’ve been putting on a bowtie more often when I head out to the clubs. Tonight though, when I walk into the club, HALF THE MEN IN HERE HAVE BOWTIES. Why!? A simple explanation – I’ve walked into a birthday party and the theme was Beauty and the Geek. They probably thought I was part of the invite list. Anyway I found a guy dressed as a beauty! Cool… something I definitely would have done a year or so ago…

Beauty and the Geek theme

Speaking of Beauty and the Geek – If you ever saw season 1 Australia – The Asian guy apparently looks like me:

Best. Ratio. Ever
It’s been a while since I’ve been to a club with a whole crapload of asian girls. Well here’s a photo:

Can I get an Amen? AMEN!

The Riverside Dance!
Me and my friend do the Soulja boy dance pretty well, and  we just learned the Riverside Dance, which is pretty lame but effective. Luckily for us, the song came up twice tonight, so we went up to random girls each time and did the dance. Its quite a charmer – People around just follow the simple moves and you all become friends. Awesome.

The Riverside Dance Video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Girl almost did something stuipd.
I ask a girl who looks so bored if she wants to dance with me. I mean, who wouldn’t? She said ‘no’, because she said ‘she might do something stupid’. You have got to be kidding me. Did she not know who I was? And what possible stupid thing CAN you do anyway? Dancing with me  is the a freaking privilege! I swear, it was just going to be an innocent dance.

If you aim high and miss… you get a free grind.
Throughout the night I am trying my best to mack on this tall girl – she lets me grind but nothing more. Later in the night, her really short friend came up and told me that tall girl missed me, but it appears the short girl is more drunk. So we started grinding. Heavy grinding. Let me tell you.. when a girl is giving you a vertical bodyslide grind with her boobs, you know you’re in. pwoooarrrrrrrr never has someone used her boobs so well. I have fallen in love with her in 3 seconds flat.

Mouth rape
She bends down and she doesn’t come back up… Strange. A moment later, I realise she is too drunk to stand up again. Godamn!! So I pull her up and we swap saliva, while my arms are struggling to hold her up so she doesn’t collapse and get kicked out. Besides all this, she was seriously trying to rape my mouth. She was jabbing that tongue of hers into me without my permission, I had to fight the damn thing off . I seriously was caught by surprise by the verocity of the digging action by her tongue – I really felt violated! She left to go home with friends, (booo!), and she has probably woken up with no idea what happened – well… your story is on the interwebs now! LOL

Ignorant friends
I went back to my friends, who I assume saw the whole thing, but they mentioned nothing. I didn’t say a word either, so I’ll leave it up to them to find out on this review, lol.

2 guys lost in a club
I stand there looking around. Another guy stands next to me and looks around as well for his friends. Our eyes catch each other. We gaze. We smile. I wonder what he smells like as our smiles become laughter. I have no idea who he is and he has no idea who I am. We secretly share telepathic messages about nothing. A shrug of the shoulders, a manly handshake-hug and he leaves. A strange experience but it was interesting.  

My leg is bastardised
I am standing there, and a girl in a white dress comes straight to me and then I said. LETS DANCE. So she grabbed my waist, and basically humped my leg viciously back and forth for a good 5 or 6 hits before moving on. A strange experience but it was interesting. 

Oh its a fob!
I saw some FOBs here in the club. I love fobs. I say hello and ask where they came from originally. They were all from Sydney, Australia. How embarrasment.

Cartwheels
Near the end of the night, the floor was about half capacity, and I wanted to do a cartwheel, but I had to carefully look out for security guards. I stepped 10 steps back and just stood there on the spot. My friends look at me puzzled. After the security guy walks away, I quickly dash and do my cartwheel. Success! I turn around and there is a guy standing there. Luckily its not the guard, but a random who saw my cartwheel and was waiting for a hi-5. So I hi-fived him and we danced for a song.

Arrivederci
Left at 3am due to tiredness, lack of girls, friends being tired and music switching to house.

Recommendation
For the second week Satisfaction has held its momentum from the Grand Opening. Not too packed but busy enough to keep you in. Relatively low entry cover charge and enticement for women to come really helps here. Dark setting and aircon assists with atmosphere, but the main carpet area can get stuffy sometimes, but expected in any club. If you come here, come with friends.

Satisfaction @ Tao gets 9.0/10 tonight.

View of Brooklyn's main room from the front.

Never in the history of my RnB clubbing career for 4 short years have I been bombarded with promotional material for the Grand Opening of this night. Facebook, email, posters, more facebook, more email, more posters. You would expect them to do door knocking as well. The previous event at V-Bar had finally closed and the promoters, Urban Agent, have had success on their 40/40 Saturday Nights at Brooklyn – “why not do a Friday one as well?” They think. It’s an ambitious launch, to replicate the experience of a Shanghai nightclub with waitresses and limo service to the venue from a pick up spot at world square. A friend wants to check it out, so a guestlist was organised, and I was keen to see how Brooklyn has changed since the new promoters took over. So here we go!

Shanghai Nights @ Brooklyn Hotel Sydney

Assessment Time: 10:30 – 3:00am
Website: http://www.urbanagent.com.au
Address: Cnr George and Grovenor Street, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Dress code applies. Collared shirt for guys. However casual would have gotten away with it tonight.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 Guestlist: Well well well.. this is a special point. One can usually send in a guestlist and get a $5 discount or more. Tonight, as we enter the club, the flat fee was $25, and ALL GUESTLISTS WERE CANCELLED. What the fuck! It was only 10:30. Well, apparently they were allowed to do it, because there were so many fucking people outside. They could have charged $30 or $40 and people would still have probably paid up. Total fucking rort.
Inside: A main bar dance area to hold 100 or so people with DJ elevated a metre or so above the floor. Central circular bar. Second bar at the back to primarily serve the back outdoor courtyard. The courtyard holds 2 or 300 people. A second DJ resides here as well.
Cloak Room: I can’t remember, but it was a reasonable price – $4 or something for an item.
Bar: I did not drink tonight, but they had $3.50 for shot based drinks until midnight. Much more reasonable than $17 vodka red bulls the last time I was here.
DJ: Unknown Music: RnB inside the main room. Mixed as a professional does – choruses only to keep the crowd going with the occasional commercial house song thrown in.
Crowd: Mostly if not all asian. The occasional white person and indian clubber were also represented tonight.
Entertainment: MC for the main room at night. Promoters giving out lanyards the entire night like hotcakes, I suspect it was because the lanyards had the old V-Bar “Amber” event printed on them, rendering these lanyards throwaway material. By the end of the night everybody including myself had two of these things. Head promoter is throwing out free T-shirts out to the crowd. Nice. There is also a free shuttle service from world square to Brooklyn, if you book ahead, but why World Square? My suspicion is partly to show all the people lining up ouside of Flow: “Hey, you guys going to Flow, do you get a stretch hummer? nope. we rule and you drool”. That is my conspiracy theory. (Promoters have since dropped the Stretch Hummer promotion). Later around midnight, a dancing chinese dragon came in, which had blinking lights and everything. That was pretty impressive, even though Chinese New Year was last month. Also being the grand opening night, confetti is sprayed everywhere amongst the crowd. It’s hard to not like and hate this place at the same time. To top it off, there’s also a BBQ out in the back. They’ve gone all out here.
Atmosphere: Packed like sardines inside, smokey in the back outside area. Inside the vibe was good, but still too packed for my liking. Keep reading for more details on my thoughts on this whole setup

Nom Nom BBQ

Review & Timeline
Superlong line but we get in.
As with massively promoted nights with a zillion birthdays being held, you should expect really long lines. Tonight was no exception, with the separate guestlist and normal line stretching out for ages. It was only 10:30 and we knew the general line, at least, was a 80 minute or so wait. This kind of waiting really turns people off. LUCKILY, a friend knows the promoter, and within about 5 minutes the entire group is let inside. Woot! But seriously, for the uninitated clubber, they do think being on the guestlist means getting express entry and not waiting outside for 30 minutes to get in. Well, that’s what I used to think. Where is the justice?

At around 1am, I look out and people are still lining up to get inside. They have no chance – the place is packed, and I feel a tinge of sadness for them, as I once was in their position. Then I laugh to myself and keep dancing.

The poor souls outside have a look inside to see how much fun we are having.

Overpromising on the “4 massive arenas”
Such is the description given for each of brooklyn’s areas in the promotional poster. Jesus I nearly choked reading the flyer. Brooklyn really only has 2 dance areas, a small table area and a even smaller bar second bar area. These are the 4 arenas?? To describe these as 4 massive arenas can give the unsuspecting clubber the impression .. of 4 massive arenas to dance in. How many first timers to Brooklyn would have been disappointed with the setup, if they managed to get into the club? If any place should be close to “arena like” it would be Home or Tank Nightclubs, not Brooklyn.

The outdoor area is a disappointment
Alas, the largest area of Brooklyn is the outdoor area, and that was pretty crap. It was just a smokers paradise there, and the DJ assigned here had the unfortunate destiny to have his speakers set to 1 out of 10. I could have placed my mobile phone on loudspeaker and it wouldve gotten more people dancing. The volume was seriously that low. At least people could talk out here, but I did not go to the outdoor area to talk. I WANTED DANCE!

I miss the old dead Brooklyn.
The place now is packed, which is good to see, but at what cost? Regulars driven out, and cover charge smacked on. No doubt the night was declared a success by the promoters, with photos to prove – it was a success for the promoters but what about the punter? I have been massively disappointed with tonight in terms of the atmosphere, which I believe is a big part of the whole clubbing experience.

Table service
In the real city of Shanghai, small groups can get a private booth and be served by a dedicated waitress/hostess the entire night to bring drinks, games etc. Tonight was an attempt to replicate this, and it has unfortunately failed muchly. By about midnight everybody is standing up, and the bar is right next to the tables. The waitresses are redundant, and speaking of them, I only saw a handful of them tonight. It was advertised as 50 (now its 30) of the waitresses hanging out and about, so where were they? Did I seriously miss them?

I found a VIP Waitress!

Bowtie!
Lately I’ve been donning a bowtie, its awesome. I saw another guy and took a photo, but he wasn’t as enthusiastic seeing another guy with a bow tie. Maybe if I was a chick he would have been more happy in this photo:

Dude doesn't look happy to be with me wearing a bowtie

Arrivederci
Friends ditched me and so I eventually left.

Recommendation
Utterly disappointed. It’s not worth it. I hope the promoters will readjust what they promise in this night as well as acknowledge the existence of guestlists. With reports of 2000 to 4000 people in attendance the following week, they can surely use the excess money to improve the place somehow.

Shanghai Nights @ Brooklyn Hotel – 4/10

Good Vibrations Sydney 2010

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

Click here to view the embedded video.

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.

Salt-N-Pepa : Push It

Click here to view the embedded video.

I was disappointed with the Salt N Pepa set – didnt know they were doing a DJ set. They were playing house music for crying out loud!

DJ Crazee: Playing Daft Punk’s “Alive”

Click here to view the embedded video.

DJ Crazee’s set was aweseome.. very well mixed and kept everyone going. Not a dull beat. Was very happy with this set

Armand Van Helden Good Vibrations: Bonkers

Click here to view the embedded video.

Armand Van Helden (Duck sauce): aNYway

Click here to view the embedded video.

I enjoyed Armand’s set. The rain gave a bit more of a wet atmosphere, but really prevented me from doing some epic dancing – I was just standing around singing along to the songs like everybody else. It would have definitely been more epic if his set was originally set in the Laundry tent where the surface was dancable.

The Aston Shuffle: Play the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “heads will roll”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline: So we got in without problems, cloak room no dramas – plenty of people on hand to help out, but when we went to Good Vibrations Stage.. we couldn’t even get close. There were just so many people!

Timeline

Big Sombrero Syndrome
We dig deep into the Good Vibrations crowd, but in every spot we stood, the people behind us would tell us to take off our Sombreros. HELL NO! We moved on and kept running into people who wanted us to “TAKE IT OFF!”. No. NO. nuuuuuuuuuuu!!! We finally found a little spot where there was a 1 metre gap behind us, an we happily stood there and watched the festivities.

Long toilet lines
These are a feature of every event for the people who purchased General tickets. Even so, there is only one VIP set of toilets – if you were at the back at the Star Bar area or the Roots tent, you would have to trek across to the other side of centennial park in order to get into the VIP tent and then there would probably be another line inside as well. Anyway we met a friend lining up for the toilets which was pretty funky dory!

We met them in the toilet line

Toilet competitions
Not sure if it was the sunnies, the sombreros or just our presence as men but we somehow are talking to all these girls in line! We made a challenge to see who would be quicker in the bathroom. I put down the gauntlet and declared I could be in an out in 1 minute. I barely scraped by – in and out of the toilet in 55 seconds. Oh yeahhh… Im the man! I can only thank god for giving me good muscular control over my bladder. I won the competition, but no prize to be had. Thats a relief.

Man with a suspicious backpack
There’s a man who has a backpack with a huge tube coming out of it and he’s sucking on it. How on earth did he sneak that in??!!

His girlfriend offers us a sip.. sure. It’s just water!! BOOO.

It's only water from the backpack

2 girls tonging each other like theres no tomorrow
We go inside the green room – its very relaxed here, but of course theres a DJ and we dance. The music is surprisingly easy to dance to and I enjoy it. I can’t remember exactly what type of house it was. There’s also a very high ratio of women in here, probably because this room was sponsored by SportsGirl. In a matter of moments I am dancing with a girl, woo! But then a friend of hers steps up behind her and grinds her bum. Ok fair enough, we keep on dancing, a sandwich of sorts. But this second girl.. she was totally grinding her friend really really rough, like dry humping. Suddenly a girl takes my sombrero and they start making out hardcore under my awesome hat!! Matty is laughing his ass off. I imagine myself under my hat, and I feel sad.

Last act (and women) of the night
So for the last act we went to The Aston Shuffle. I had already seen Basement Jaxx at Future Music Last year, so it was some proper dance time! I’m not familiar at all with the Aston Songs, but everyone under the tent here were dancing and cheering. I especially went all out with my socks being wet, and we get lots of awesome attention. We dance and a hot asian girl joins in our circle. I once again did something stupid and TALKED TO HER. She ran off.

But hey, another girl came along, gave me a random pash. I tried to talk to her but she, too, ran off. I REALLY HAVE AN UGLY VOICE!

Look! It's a girl in a punctured ball used as a poncho, lol.

Recommendation
It rained today and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Everybody else was going through the same experience and it became a kind of a comraderie. It just wasn’t fun walking out of the venue. Speaking of walking out, it was THE LONGEST walk out to the bus stop, and having wet socks really sucks. At least I wasn’t muddy like some of the others that were spotted.

Apparently the Naughty By Nature set was epic. I could see their entire tent was packed with no moving room. Anyhow, without the Killers, it was still an awesome day for us. Having free tickets really helped.

Good Vibrations Sydney – 8/10

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.
Timeline

Is it me or do some of the girls here just hate conversation?
I went in and say my hellos to friends. Suddenly a girl leaps on me and dances very close to me! Whoa..

James: Hello
Her: Hey
James: who are you?
Her: (cutting me off) I dont want to know you!
James: um, ok!
(we kiss)
I will spare you the boring details of it… This was bizarre, I don’t even know her name. After a few bizarre minutes of kissing, she then runs away and goes back to a guy and resumes hugging and kissing with him, who was probably her boyfriend! Sickening. Oh well..

Friend gets kicked out
I have a friend, Special K, who dances quite promiscuously, very close to a stripper like-way. The boys love it, but she gets kicked out for being too sexual on the dance floor. That is so not fair, there wasn’t really much else to perve on tonight!

I don’t deserve this… another girl?
By miracle freak of nature, I am dancing with another asian girl, and somehow we are kissing.. I really don’t know why or what I did to deserve this. It could have been a lack of guys, I don’t know. Then she left to go home without inviting me! How rude, haha… I think I was getting pretty drunk right now.

Arrivederci
Well more dancey dancey, met some other friends – we sodded off home at closing time.

Recommendation:
This was a good turnout for Christmas Eve. Not too packed, and not dead, it was just right, but only after 1am. Before that it was pretty crap.

Flow Fridays on Christmas Eve Thursday @ WSP - 6.5/10

Highlife - Favela Podium

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:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Video of the ceiling lights:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline

Taking over the floor right away
I found my friends pretty much right away, and within 5 minutes we have taken over the place.By taking over, I mean everybody else has been intimidated by us and evacuated the dancefloor.

Dancefloor pit at Favela - Highlife Fridays. This is the peak of it.

Taking over the second floor
We went downstairs and there were about 4 people there. We dance, and they stare at us. We are rocking it out, and then after a song or two we are bored and go back upstairs.

Arrivederci
The place just got more dead and dead and we left after an hour to go to Soho

Recommmendation

I did arrive late, but even so, it should still be somewhat busy at 1am. A good venue, two promoters (Paul Strange Presents and Hypnotize Entertainment) should have usually guaranteed a good night tonight, but it was not meant to be. Perhaps Kings Cross is never meant to have an RnB night for the white folk that frequents it.

Highlife @ Favela Nightclub (2nd week of opening) – 3/10

Homebake: Standing outside the Main Arena

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.

Acts seen:

Hilltop Hoods
Probably the best act we went to today. They got the crowd going, and the crowd of course, went with it. Lots of chanting, and played a lot of stuff from their new album. Luckily I have a copy of their album. Also the screens behind them had pretty awesome animations. Here’s a video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

During the act there was also a random balloon floating around. On closer inspection, it was actually a blown up condom. But we could see that there was sperm along the inside of the walls. Someone had blown up a used condom. This was disgusting.

condom crowd surfing

Phrase
I didn’t know many of his songs, but it was a very good vibe inside the big top as well. At the end of it he event went crowd surfing, lol:

Phrase crowd surfing video

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jet
We sat on the grass – the lead singer sounded like he was yelling throughout. Even though we sat at the back, it could be felt that it was a pretty powerful and rocking set.

Powderfinger
All day we were waiting for this act, but it ended up being only average. Some of the new songs played I did not know yet. They played a song and wanted the crowd to sing along. They put the words on the screen, but the words were only published one word at a time. Not only that, each word was up for half a second, and it was 1 second out of sync of the band. It was a total fail and nobody ended up singing along to the song. Other than that, the more famous songs got the crowd going well. I heard they were breaking up after their current set of shows were completed, but they seemed to be ok.

Powderfinger “Got you on my mind / Summertime” video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Other things
I get a Hottie tattoo

The first thing we did was end up at the fake tattoo place. Place is a rip off at $20 but we got one anyway. I get ‘Hottie’, while my male friend gets Love Hearts on his neck, lol.

Homebake hottie!

Went on the ride of spinning fun
I haven’t been on one of these in about 10 years, so for the cheap price of $8, I could sit on this thing. I was pretty scared on this thing!! It didn’t help that my friend tells me about how a girl once had the chains on her chair broken off , and she fell to her death.

The outfit
It’s an orange jumpsuit with the words “Easy Jail” on the back. We sticky tape extra words on it .. see pics below.

Nobody wants photos with me
This was probably the least successful outfit i’ve had. Probably only 2 or 3 people wanted to take photos with me

Guys slap my ass, and I am called out to be put into jail
This was probably the most successful outfit i’ve had to pick up guys. On the back I had my Name, and my phone number. After 9 guys took down my number, I decided to remove the mobile phone bit.I also had many, many random guys slap my ass or proposition me.

Also, I would get people occasionally yelling out “Get him!! Put him back in Jail!”

I walked around like this for half of the day

Also had one very affectionate fan jump on me and dry hump me… terrible.

My biggest fan..

Nutbush!

They started playing Nutbush City Limits during intermission. I admit to a friend i don’t know how to dance the Nutbush, so she gladly teaches me:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Turns out the reason why they played Nutbush City Limits was that there was actually a Flashmob doing the Nutbush dance on one of the other areas! Here’s the video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Arrivederci
We left after the last act of Powderfinger.

Homebake 2009 – 8.5/10 . Strong line up and good weather provided for a good day out. Wallet still hurting from exuberant food prices.

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.

Main Room Home Nightclub - 3rd October 2009 - Very packed and alive

Video: Walkthrough of Home Nightclub:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thoughts
Tonight is packed. Surprise!
Really packed tonight. Not just downstairs, but the other rooms were bustling heaps as well. Strange, as the other two nights I came here, the other rooms were quite dead. The rain outside probably really did keep people inside – you would think rain would keep people inside at home, no?

Watered down Tequila shots.. and my solution to solve this ridiculous issue.
Drunken behaviour is bad sometimes. So they decided to serve tequila shots… ON ICE. First its no shots after midnight.. now tequila on the rocks? That’s just going too far!!! I am 25 godamn it, not 18! They should give us 25 year olds special privilege to have pure shots, as well as shots after midnight, and let everybody else have only diluted shots on ice. NOW THAT’S AN IDEA AUSTRALIA!

Dancing
I danced heaps on the podium in the main room. It’s good to get it out of the system. They even allowed people to shoulder ride, which is nice. Here’s a short excerpt of the night.

Video: Tiesto’s Adagio for Strings at Home Nightclub:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kicked out thanks to passing out
One of my friends passed out, and we were dragging her sorry ass outside. Bouncer saw us and helped kick all of us out. We had to find her other friend. We found her also passed out, in the women’s toilet. Classy indeed. Apparently the water downed tequila shots seriously pushed her over the edge. LOL.

A blow up boyfriend
While looking for the second friend, I bumped into a hen’s night. They somehow managed to brign a Male blow-up doll into the place. I wonder if the doll had to pay for entry as well. I took a photo with them. She shoved the mans face into mine, and I accidentally kissed him. Gross.

Me, the hen and our boyfriend the blow up doll. I think his name was Ken.

Coda
Kicked out 1:30am by association of drunk friend. 2am lock out also applied as we did try to go back inside.

Recommendation
Despite the tequila on the rocks… it was a pretty good night tonight!

Homemade Saturdays @ Home Nightclub Sydney, 3rd October 2009 – 7/10

Assessment Time: 9pm – 12:30am
Address: 135 George St, Parramatta
Dress Code: Casual OK. I was wearing my business attire – collared black shirt, blazer, black pants and shoes.
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: Free for the whole night. No guestlist necessary
Inside: Gasworks Nightclub takes up about a third of the area of Albion Hotel. It is basically one big room with lounges against one wall, some tables/chairs on the other side, DJ at the front along with a massive podium (enough space to hold a band), and bar at the back.
DJs: DJ Fresh doing the whole set tonight.
Music: RNB and house. The DJ was very good tonight, mixing RNB songs and house songs. Busted the DJ playing the same house song twice. Once early on around 9.30, and once again at around midnight. no sound difficulties. It was at the right volume and not too loud.
Crowd: Caucasian/Euro. A few groups of girls, and not many guys. Interesting.
Atmosphere: Dead initially. C and I had a bit of a dance initially, and there was another couple dancing ballroom style. In total that’s 4 people on the floor, with about 15 people looking on from the sidelines. About 2 hours later it picked up, and there were about 30 people on the floor at the peak. The place could probably accomodate 100 people easily. A surprising turn out for a Thursday night as I expected it to be totally dead. The general atmosphere was pretty fun, mainly because the guy/girl ratio was even steven.

Timeline
Breaking the empty dancefloor:
When it comes to the good old dance in a dead floor, only C is confident and gutsy enough to do it with me. It was 9pm and the RNB music had started to crank up, and we had super itchy feet. Onwards we go! We dance and make up stupid moves while people look. We get tired and C has to leave… we leave the room in a state of awe. Oh yeaahhh.

I have a fan copy my dance moves (and I give some dance advice)
Later in the night the big podium is open and I jump up for some moves. There is a white guy (ok they’re all white in here) looking at my moves, and out of the corner of my eye I can see him trying to copy my moves. Oh I feel so flattered! I talk with him and he tells me how awesome i am at dancing. Of course, i don’t think I am good, but lucky for me, I am at a white club where not many people can dance properly! It’s been a while since I had someone ask me to teach them how to dance, so I teach him some basics – (bend the knees, and use the arms more rigorously is what I told him) and he is now that much closer to enlightment.

Later he became my wingman and we try to hit on girls by grinding with them. Sadly that didn’t work. Plus since there weren’t many people here, we quickly ran out of girls.

What is the point of going to a club and dancing at the same spot?
Since 9pm, there were two girls near the door. One was sitting, and one was dancing by jumping up and down. It was now midnight, and they were both there in the exact same spots. I thought I would talk to them into coming to the dancefloor.

So I asked why they were dancing in this same spot the whole time:
“i dont know, we like it here”

You girls picked the most silly spot to dance. You’re already here, so just dance wherever you want guys!

I scare my newest fan girl away – I called her a bad word
I’m doing some knee high dancing, and I don’t know why. A girl comes up next to me and copies my dancing. So i made her wave her hands as well while we pretend to run. Then I told her:
“why are you running? you look like an idiot”
That’s when she ran away from me. I don’t think my sarcasm came across too well in that one. But in any case she did look like an idiot waving her hands and doing knee high steps. Given, I was doing the exact same thing, but I make it look cool. hahaha.

Coda
Friends had to go for work the next day, so I leave as well.

Recommendation
For a Thursday it was eventually a good turn out. If the population doubled or tripled it would have been pretty awesome. If you ever find yourself in the Parramatta west area and just feel like a simple dance then come here.

Static @ Pumphouse Review
Assessment Time: 12:15 – 2am
Dress Code: Casual ok. Everybody here dresses up in their dancing rnb/hip hop gear. Baggy pants, MJ jackets, and hats are the norm.
Cover Charge: $25. Discount on guestlist before 11pm I think.
Music: RNB and hip-hop. When I mention hip-hop, I mean lots of rapping, and lots of rnb songs which you can dance your heart to. It was good tonight.
Atmosphere: Average. The place wasn’t packed nor was it empty… in essence it was a bit disappointing as there were people on the floor, but upstairs there were only about 15 people, looking down. you could easily find a place to sit down here.

Inside: 2 square podiums for the dancers, and wannabe dancers, dancefloor to hold a good 100 or so people. Upstairs is the DJ area and another small dance area, but nobody really goes up there.
Walkthrough video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Entertainment: Female podium dancers. Good stuff.

Podium dancers, and a MJ fan with his red jacket

Bar: No shots after midnight. Booyah. This was a huge dealbreaker for my friends tonight. We wanted a place to have shots all night!

Crowd at static @ pumphouse

Timeline
Again, everybody is a great dancer.
I like places where everyone tries to dance, but can’t. However at pumphouse, I feel like I have to have had to be part of the top 100 of ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ in order to be noticed here. So instead of trying to be a good dancer I try to be the total opposite – an idiotic dancer. So i pulled out my my fail-safe starjumps.
Dancer stalker tries to cut my grass – dance style.
Through my awesome starjumping, I soon have two girls dancing up on stage with me for a dance. Suddenly another dancing asian guy comes up and tries to take the girls away from me! hmph! What’s with that? I walk on to dance with my friends. But you know what he does – he follows me an danced with my girlfriends! UGH! not on..  So I ended up grinding with a black chick. Things are heating up when suddenly, he grabs her hands and tries to take her away for a dance! Like WTF NOT COOL DUDE!! Stop fucking following me!! Especially not now – I am griding. I am in the middle of dry humping this girl and you are trying to ruin it! Not cool!! I told him “no” but he insisted for a dance with her. My god. Eventually he gives up and his first ever words to me were “you can have her”. Oh no shit I can haver her.

The bored DJ girlfriend
I went upstairs and talked to the DJ’s girlfriend. She was here supporting the DJ as his girlfriend. She looked totally bored. Maybe the DJ didn’t let her dance? Who knows.

Later as I was downstairs dancing – I looked up and saw her with her DJ boyfriend, and she still looked bored. I found that funny.

Coda
I was making out with that black girl, but friends wanted to leave right away. So I left.

Recommendation
I would still not recommend to come here… the music is great, but the atmosphere just isn’t there yet. Not compared to the only other options for the local asian RNB clubber.