Rock
Saturdays @ The Harp of Erin Hotel, Wollongong NSW: 17th April 2010
by James on Apr.17, 2010, under House, Retro, Rock, The Harp of Erin, Wollongong
In front of a brave Karaokeist @ The Harp of Erin, Wollongong
We have decided to spend a day in Wollongong to see the wildlife at night. We have been recommended by the locals to check out The Harp for pre-drinks, so here we go!
Saturdays @ The Harp of Erin Hotel, Wollongong NSW
Assessment Time: 22:15PM -23:30PM
Opening Hours: Unknown, but it is a bar, so typical bar hours, which would be 10am – 3am.
Website: http://www.harpoferin.com.au
Address: 124 Corrimal St, Wollongong NSW
Dress Code / Door Policy: Anything goes. it is a bar, so most casual clothes can get away with it. Hats are not allowed in here.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free entry for both the bar karaoke area as well as the dancefloor area.
Inside: Walking into the main entrance you are presented with the main room where there is a karaoke thing going on. Get up and sing! they say. The standing area holds 150 or so people, and there is a stage on the right, where you stand up to sing, or where a band can play. Bar is to the left. A wall divides this area from the second area – The second area has a central bar, surrounded by tables and stools. On one side is an enclosed area which is the dancefloor, and it is sligly elevated from the rest of the room. It holds about 60 or so people .
Cloak Room: None
Bar: Standard beer prices
Music: House music in the dance room. Typical bar karaoke music in the karaoke room. The types of music you will be subjected to range from rock to retro.
Crowd: Mostly locals, some sydneysiders – with most being caucasian.
Entertainment: Karaoke of course! But only in the karaoke room.
Atmosphere: Karaoke room – busy the whole time we were there. In the clubbing room, the general atmosphere in the bar was busy, but not packed. A good balance to allow us a bit of room to dance.
Video:360 view of the Karaoke Bar Side
Video: Walkthrough on the younger side, with dancefloor entry:
Related:
Bar Europa, Pavillion Hotel, Scruffy Murphys: Friday 12th February 2010
by James on Feb.12, 2010, under Bar Europa, Live Band, Pavillion, Pop, Rock, Scruffy Murphys
Related:
Saturdays @ The Mean Fiddler: 30th January 2010
by James on Jan.30, 2010, under House, Retro, Rock, The Mean Fiddler
Saturday Nights @ The Mean Fiddler
Walkthrough video:
- How can you NOT let us into The Mean Fiddler??
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Homebake Sydney 2009: 5th December 2009
by James on Dec.05, 2009, under Festivals / Raves, Hip Hop, Homebake, Live Band, Rock, The Domain
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.
Related:
Tuesday Club Crawl: Coyote Night @ The Gaff, Scruffy Murphys (The Vault), 3 Wise Monkeys
by James on Jul.28, 2009, under 3 wise monkeys, Live Band, Pop, RnB, Rock, Scruffy Murphys, The Gaff
A night out with Xav and Storm – The Gaff is apparently the best place to be. So here we go!
Tuesdays : Coyote Night @ The Gaff
Assessment time: 10:30 – 12:00am
Address: 16-18 Oxford Square, Corner Oxford & Riley St Darlinghurst Sydney.
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: $10. You are then given a voucher in which you can use for free entry next time, a free drink or some free food. Pretty good.
Crowd: Backpackers and locals. Mixed ages, mixed nationalities due to the inherent nature of the backpacker.
Music: Upstairs and Downstairs were a mix of top40, rnb, house, rock and pop.
Inside: An outdoor smoking area. Ground floor is a bar, with a dance area in the corner to hold 20. Downstairs underground is a large clubbing area of 2 bars, lounges and a medium sized dance floor to hold about 100 people or so.
Atmosphere: Friendly and .. party party party! Since everybody I knew had work the next day – there were only the unemployed or backpackers in this place, and it makes for a pretty friendly vibe. Met up with backpacker friends and we just danced around like mexican jumping beans. This place got very packed, and is unbelievably busy for a Tuesday night. There was basically no room on the dancefloor to dance around freely.
Door Policy / Dress Code : Almost anything goes tonight. Mohawks ok.
Entertainment: Cowgirls dancing on tables and a wet t-shirt contest – Thumbs up.
Nightclub Level @ The Gaff Sydney - Full of backpackers. Yes, it's a Tuesday night!
Related:
Fridays @ Side Bar (3rd July 2009)
by James on Jul.03, 2009, under House, Pop, RnB, Rock, Side Bar
A friend’s birthday. He has chosen to dance it out at Side Bar
Fridays @ Side Bar
(Assessment time: 10:30-2:30am)
Address: Corner of George and Pitt St, Sydney
Dress Code: Casual allowed. Hats allowed.
Entry Fee/Cover Charge: Free all night
Crowd: Backpackers from mixed backgrounds
Music: Top 40, Pop, Rock, Rnb, House – general party tunes. So some tunes you’ll like, and some you wouldn’t.
Atmosphere: It was pretty cold outside, so the place hadn’t reached capacity yet. it was probably 40% capacity. The important bit was that there were people always dancing in the floor area.
Related:
Trash @ Agincourt Hotel (Saturday 30 May 2009)
by James on May.30, 2009, under Agincourt Hotel, Indie, Pop, RnB, Rock
Leadup
Moulin Rouge fail
It was all set out – a 21st birthday at Moulin Rouge. I waited in line for 30 minutes (it was massively long, and the bouncer cut off half the line because it was intruding on other premises). It was $15 on a guestlist she didn’t double check. It was pretty busy, but I wasn’t feeling it – I couldn’t find the girl. My phone rings… She’s changed venues!! NO WAY. The promoters had failed to submit her guestlist, and she didn’t want people lining up. A big fail, as the guestlist only served as a discount entry and not for a faster entry into the club. I was in Moulin Rouge for a grand total of .. 3 minutes @ $5 / minute. I could have called a phone sex line at that rate! One of the attendees offered to try to get us into Bungalow 8 as he had a guestlist going on as a backup. Good choice, since it was all the way on the other side of the city.
Bungalow 8/Cargo Bar fail
Big fail getting in. Two of the girls were dressed up goth like (without the make up), and one of the guys was just wearing a t-shirt. Bungalow 8 refused us entry, and so did Cargo, based on this.
Decision
The two girls were keen to go to Trash, their regular haunt. By this point, nobody cared anymore where we went, we were sick of walking around bring rejected, so off we went to the Agincourt Hotel…
I knew I was in for something different overhearing a girl give directions on the phone:
“Look for huge ‘TRASH’ banner. It’s got a picture of a skull, with burning flames underneath it”…
Agincourt Hotel
Address: Corner of Harris Street and Broadway
Website: http://www.agincourthotel.com.au
Inside: 3 Levels I was told, but only the bottom two levels were open tonight. On entering is a bar area, its quite small this total area – the music from upstairs eminates towards down here. Walk up the stairs and there is another bar, and a medium sized dancefloor eating up about 60% of space.
About Trash Saturdays (assessment time midnight)
Occurence: Every Saturday
Website: http://www.trashsaturdays.com, http://www.clubblink.net
Entry Fee/Cover Charge: $12 . $10 if you’re a member.
Door Policy / Dress Code: Anybody was welcome. Hallowed. Anything allowed, except chains and spikes.
Crowd: Mixed. Mostly aussies, euros and a handful of asians. Ages varied from 18 to late 20s.
Music:
I walk in to expect heavy metal playing, when I instead, hear RNB!! Like WTF! Tonight only the first two floors were open, and there was only one DJ, playing tracks from all different genres. It was mostly alternative rock, but the songs that you know. Songs like “chop suey” by SOAD, or “Rollin’” by Limp Bizkit. Just some good heavy rock. I was awaiting the heavy metal but it never came up. Later on the website I find out that the heavy metal nights were only on Fridays. Officially the types of music being played are “Punk, Rock, Indie, Emo, Heavy, Hardcore, Party Tunes”.
Song Requests: You could sms to request a song here! A big electronic banner above the DJ set scrolls the number. My friend requests the song “I’m On A Boat” by The Lonely Island. It never gets played. What a waste of an SMS! A complete list of types of songs can be found on the website.
Atmosphere - Pretty good, vibrant. Despite first appearances, people were all pretty friendly.
Related:
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Hello! I'm James. This subjective blog serves to post every dance event I attend to. I go out clubbing once or twice a week. I may include some stories as well. Feel free to join the discussion by leaving comments - Thanks for dropping by!
James' twitter
- bought the last 4 kettle chips at the north sydney 7-eleven... bwahahahaha
- train died at waverton indefinitely. too many people at north sydney, so catching a bus home. weeeeee
- i have had a strange day today, and i don't feel real at the moment. I am, however, full of Habibs chicken!!
- OMG YOU ARE SO F*CKED UP. I TRUSTED YOU WITH MY SECRET. BUT YOU HAD TO OPEN YOUR BIG MOUTH!! YOU TOLD EVERYONE! NOW EVERYONE KNOWS IM SEXY
- Look for me at Haymarket Hotel this Friday and Verandah Bar this Saturday
- Asian lesbians, what a concept! And what an excuse to cancel dinner on me.
- they changed my street name from a PDE to RD.. how strange
- you made a bad move trying not to sit on me, and your left buttcheek made big contact with the armrest. was it worth it? Nup I bet it hurts.
- I love finding lost things in my pocket!!
- youtube notes to self: double rainbow, masterchef, cityrail, pirates ... watch this space over the next few months!
