Lavish @ Watermark Bar
Assessment Time: 11:30pm – 3:30am (closing time)
Address: 8/800 Bourke St, Docklands, Melbourne ,Victoria.
Website: http://www.facebook.com/LavishSaturdays
Dress Code: Seemingly smart casual. Most folk here were wearing collared shirts. Didn’t see any daggy dressers tonight. I was wearing a black fedora hat, white collared shirt, blazer, black pants, shoes, and suspenders.
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: $25 full charge. $20 on guestlist before 11.30pm.
Guestlist: Called one of the promoters from the Facebook webpage. She confirmed guestlist and gave me free entry as well as a bottle of champers. I forgot to redeem my free entry when I got into the club. D’oh! But I did get my free bottle of champagne. Woot!
Inside Watermark Bar: A dancefloor about the same dimensions at Martin Place Bar / Bamboo. A podium right in the middle with poles. A lengthy bar on the side. Very Bamboo-Like. However, behind the DJ is a lounge VIP area to hold 2 small parties. There is also a second room upstairs as a lounge, and a further 3rd level where there is another bar and lounges. Nice view of the waters – very nice. Walk out the side, across the pathway and there is a smoking area, as well as a second enclosed room. Inside the second room is a bar, small-ish dancefloor and Dj area. 6 or 7 lounges dot the side walls. It’s actually quite a big place.
Music: Main room was contemporary RNB throughout the whole night. Normal RNB tunes, and mixing done well. The latest commercial house in the secondary room. No complaints from me.
Crowd: Dominantly asian, young, dressed well.
Atmosphere: Crowded in the main room. Just the right amount of people in the house room, but the RNB room seemed more lively. The house room was much darker but still fun nonetheless.

Video: 360 View of the RNB room from the back podium:

Click here to view the embedded video.

ABC shots – we kill the bar
All weekend we had been taking ABC shots at the clubs. (The ABC shot is Absinthe, Bacardi 151, and Chatruese – A really disgusting drink that gets you drunk fast.) Anyway, all night we were ordering these drinks, chanting ‘ABC!… ABC!’. The rest of the crowd have no idea what we are on about, but the bartender girl joined us, doing the hand gestures for ‘ABC’, ‘YMCA’ style, which was pretty funny. Eventually later in the night the bartender girl says that they ran out! We exhausted their supply of absinthe! Booo

The crowd chants for me – strange yet beautiful
OK, this is quite possibly one of those bizarre yet awesome moments. I was up earlier on the podium just dancing away with a friend and I hopped off. About half an hour later I came back, and still, NOBODY was gutsy enough to hop on the podium. By this time, the entire RNB room was packed. So I jumped up and did some stupid dance with my suspenders. Suddenly I can hear cheering from the crowd – half the dancefloor turned around from the DJ to look at James do a silly dance! This was pretty cool, but I had no idea what to do. I just put my hands up and down in the air, and everybody else just followed suit. I could see my friends having a puzzled look on their faces thinking ‘What the f*ck is happening – James is popular!’ – hahaha I loved it… this will be forever a very proud moment in my amateur clubbing career.

My fan base. They cheered for me as I went up on stage to dance. Awesome!

In other words, JAMES TRAN HAD TAKEN OVER THE CLUB!! Well for a few seconds anyway.

A costume party arrives
We were in the house room and there were all these people! I have no idea what the occasion was but they were all dressed up as superheroes I think. Actually I’m not sure.. check this guy out:

Who is this guy meant to be?

Meeting a promoter
I was taking a break, feeling all sad, and a promoter comes up to say hello to me. We talk, and I find out he has a clubbing blog too for Melbourne! Suffice to say though it has a different angle on clubbing, and is more from a promoters point of view. Maybe one day I’ll be a promoter and use my status to hit on hot chicks.

Rip Off Rose man
We have the old asian rose lady in Sydney. She visits the clubs and flogs her roses. Tonight there was another guy flogging off roses. They were $10 each. ZOMG.. what a rip off. Well, actually, that’s normal for a rose isn’t it? But geez.

Later one of my friends gives me a white rose that a guy bought for her. Hahaha, awesome.

A Tree!
Here’s a photo of me randomly trying to climb the tree in the smoking area.

Letting the inner Spiderman out

Coda
We stayed until closing time when they kicked us all out. It was 3.30am

Recommendation
A very good venue, one of the best asian rnb places I’ve been to. Though it can get a bit crowded in the rnb room. I would recommend it for asians visiting Melbourne.

Assessment Time: 11:45pm-2:45am
Address: 386 Chapel St, South Yarra, Melbourne
Website: http://www.chasersnightclub.com.au
Dress Code: Casual. I was wearing a fedora hat, blazer, jeans and leather shoes.
Cover charge / Entry Fee: Free before 11pm if on guestlist. $20 if on guestlist after 11pm. If none of the above, it is $25.
Guestlist: See website to submit a guestlist using their form. Open guestlists ok as well. The line outside is short.
Inside: You walk in and there is a bar to your immediate left in an enclosed VIP area on busy nights. On the right is the general bar. Further up is the main dance area. The DJ booth is on an elevated platform, and smack right in the middle is a massive square podium to hold a good 10 or so people, elevated to the same level as the DJ. Fancy green lights and disco lights as well as smoke machines everywhere. This place was built for trance. There was also a second balcony level but alas was closed for tonight.
Smoking Area: There is a little side room near the toilets, which looks like a male urinal from a third world country. You stand in line staring at a wall as you smoke your cigarette. Looked pretty funny. I suppose its better for the clubs to keep them inside, rather than going outside and losing their patrons.
Music: RNB. Typical RNB beats mixed well.
Crowd: Dominantly Asian, young.

Atmosphere: Not too many people, but not dead, just in the middle to keep the club going.

Side View of the crowd - Chasers Nightclub

Walkthrough Video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline
A good impression even before I got there
I sent in a guestlist, and 2 minutes later I get a phone call – It was Chasers, asking me to confirm my guestlist, and what time I would be arriving – how nice!

Inside – straight to the podium
As we walked in I saw the most magnificent sight – a larger than life podium in the middle of the floor – and it had nobody dancing on it!! The thing was elevated probably 1m high, so it was no easy step up – everybody had to lift themselves up onto this podium. I did my dance as friends cheer on, and as the rest of the crowd look bemused

Up on the podium at Chasers Nightclub Melbourne

By the end of the night we had been on the podium and had done laps around the dancefloor – we were definitely the crazy group everyone was looking at – I like that!

Video: 360 from the podium

Click here to view the embedded video.

Not as busy as usual
The crowd wasn’t packed, but it wasn’t dead – it was sort of on the middle verging on collapsing in a spiral of death, but it was still pretty good. I would say similar to Verandah bar, where its crowded on the floor but deadish in other places. I prefer less crowded bars.

Anyway one of the bouncers kindly informed me that last week, this place was quite packed and busy, and tonight it wasn’t so popular – they were hoping for it to pick up later. It didn’t. We still enjoyed it! The other asian rnb event on tonight was Seven, but perhaps we can check that out next time I’m in Melbourne

Coda
We had to leave as two of us got kicked out for being drunk – oh well, fun times had!

Recommendation
Based on tonight, I would be a iffy yes, but if I were invited to go to another club, I would go there, simply because of the high entry fee, you would expect a better place. If there were more people tonight this place would definitely be awesome. The venue itself is pretty good. Music, typical rnb but got us going.

I think the consensus was that we should have visited Seven.. we’ll save that for next time.

A guestlist was submitted, and again as previous night, we had a truckload of drinks before we left, so here we go!

Sin City Nightclub
Assessment Time: 11:30pm – 1:45am
Website: http://www.sincitynightclub.com.au
Address: 22 Orchid Ave, Surfers Paradise QLD
Dress Code: Casual OK.
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: I’m not sure. $10 I believe. Free on guestlist. Free entry before 11pm if you obtained a voucher. Vouchers are obtained from a stand outside the club., making the whole process irrelevant.
Guestlist: A friend submitted the guestlist through the website. Guestlist also includes 3 free drink vouchers.
Inside: Walk in and you are faced with a seated area. To the right is the dancefloor that could hold about 100 people or less. Two podiums on either end. Elevated standing areas along one walls, and a DJ booth along the other wall. At the back is the bar, with lounges on either side. 2 or 3 VIP areas are in the very back corner.
Music: Commercial House
Bar: $50 Fishbowl Long Island Teas. Awesome. Waitresses in skimpy outfits. Double awesome. Photos below.
Crowd: Locals and tourists. Mixed nationalities tonight of Aussies, Euros, Asians and Indians. For some reason there were quite a few guys in here, I would say a 70/30 ratio of guys to girls in here.
Atmosphere: For a Sunday night, it was quite good. By midnight the bar and dancefloor were pretty packed. You could easily confuse it for a Saturday night out. People were pretty friendly too.

Walkthrough Video of Sin City Nightclub (Sunday):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline

Bypassing the line and getting free drinks
We walked up to the bouncer and said the magic words: “We’re on the guestlist”. The bouncer let us right in. No security check. There was a line of about 20 people looking at us walk right in.

We walked up to the door girl: “We’re on the guestlist”. She let us right in and gave us 3 free drink vouchers. What the hell? No name checking?? No voucher check? I LOVE SURFERS PARADISE. Later though the 3 drink vouchers encouraged more drinking, so Sin City probably got their money back and then some.

When a photo ninja becomes just plain annoying:

Our little group of people are happily drinking away taking photos. I made a grave mistake of hi fiving this Indian dancer. He saw it as the opportunity to hang out with our group and invade every photo we took. First he started by doing behind the target ninja photos (pic removed), which is fine. Tolerated.

Secondly he started sticking his grubby fingers in front of the camera which is definitely not cool:

How to fuck up other peoples photos #2 - stick your hand in front of camera

Then finally he just jumps into the damn photos:

How to fuck up other peoples photos #3 - stick your head in front of camera

WHO WAS THIS GUY??? Even though he danced ok,   I REALLY REALLY REALLY HATE HIM RIGHT NOW. Even as I peruse through these photos, feelings of anger and hate well up inside of me as I relive the moments we were terrorized by this demonic photo whore. UGH!! ANNOYING! So many horny guys are out on a Sunday night. I do not have one clean shot of the nightclub crowd without his f*cking head popping in. We actually told him to “stop it”, but of course, “stop it” means “oh yes, please.. I’m begging you to go harder at it”.

Fishbowl drinks:
$50 Long Island Tea Drinks, served to you by waitresses in corsets. Enough Said:

Sin City Nightclub Surfers Paradise: Cute waitresses and alcohol = win!

Meeting some japanese women
Rooster wanted to hit on women. Tonight I just wanted to dance. Ok sure, so the plan was to hit on the ugliest ones and work our way up the beauty chain.

We went up to two Japanese girls and straight up asked for a dance. Funnily they said yes, and so I ended up stuck with them the rest of the night. Rooster had tried to get other girls, but they weren’t so receptive.  So here I am with Jap girls and we dance the rest of the night away. Sadly they don’t speak much english at all, so we drank instead. I like that kind of arrangement.

Coda: Friends get kicked out
An SMS from Rooster: “we got kicked out”. A friend had got trashed and so it was good enough to be kicked out. Oh well. Me and Jap girls leave for food.

Recommendation
This is quite a nice spot for Sunday night. Good music and atmosphere too. I do recommend it for Sunday clubbing.

Ly and I are visitng the Gold Coast. We just left The Bedroom nightclub, and we are following girls, being the single men that we are. Somehow, we ended up outside Melbas..  so here we go!

Melbas Nightclub

Assessment Time: 02:40am-04:30am
Website: http://www.melbas.com.au
Address: 46 Cavill Avenue, Surfers Paradise QLD
Door Policy / Dress Code: Casual OK
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: $10. Free if a guestlist was organised
Guestlist: Email info@melbas.com.au
Inside: Two levels. Ground has lengthy bar in the middle. Stools / tables everywhere. An outdoor seating area. Out the back is a dancefloor. Upstairs is more cosy. VIP area at back for private functions (?), 3 large podiums at the front dance area. 2 Poles to dance with. I can’t think of any place in Sydney that has poles! (The retro might have some but I can’t recall). Long bar on the side wall
Bar: Short to no lines, thanks to the huge bar. Pricing unknown as we scored free drinks all night.
Music: Downstairs is Retro / Classic music, while upstairs is primarily house but the occasional rnb/pop mashup as well.
Crowd: Dominantly White Aussie. I think me and Ly were the only asians here. No problem, as everyone was friendly here. People of all ages were about. It does remind me of The Retro Bristol Arms back in Sydney, but it seemed cooler here.

Melbas Nightclub - Upper Level

Video Tour:
Right after we got inside. Ground level and moving upstairs:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline:

Bypassing the Entry Fee:
Girl: “$10″.
That was enough for me and Ly to not enter Melbas. It was almost 3am already. We walked out and bumped into a man:
Man: “Hey, do you want free entry into Melbas?”
Us: “sure!”
Man: “Here, put these on”
He gave us a MELBAS wristband each, and an extra two just because he didn’t need them. Surely there was a catch…
Man: “There’s no catch. Go upstairs and these wristbands will give you access to the bar tab all night”

SOMETHING IS WRONG, but how could we refuse so many free things? Walked up to the same girl, but this time we showed her our new wristbands
Girl: “Oh that’s strange…
Me: (gulps)
Girl: “… you haven’t got stamps! Let me stamp you”.

Wow. So we got stamped in for free!

Trying to get free drinks with our wristbands of power
We had our new power wristbands. So we marched upstairs to the bar and ordered some drinks.
Girl: “That’ll be $20″
So we waved her our wristbands
Girl: “Ill have to check with the manager”

She walked to the manager. He looked at us, and we madly shook our wristbands. We have the wristbands of power damnit!!
Manager nods his head.
Girl: “Manager says ok”
Yes! We had access to the bar tab!! So we plied ourselves with free drinks all night, thanks to a stranger on the street. What a nice place.

The VERY FIRST video of me dancing!
Dear Reader – if you have not danced with me yet, then you are about to see something spectacular – witness me dancing at a club, in the comfort of the internet!! I suppose it is about time a video was made of me.

Watch as I pick up two girls through the sheer power of DANCE:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Ok, ok…  so that was pretty embarrassing. Though, dancing with me is an HONOUR, why don’t girls understand this?

Perhaps trying to dance with girls at 4am doesn’t come on as sleazy enough.

Bride to bes and her fetish
Pretty much the first girls to dance with us were a bride to be and her friends. Bride was fun, but her friends didn’t want to really dance with us. No love. I am looking through the photos, and she is holding her penis in every photo. Was this supposed to be a sign? I found it bizarrely funny:

Melbas Nightclub Gold Coast - With the bride and her favourite toy. She is also holding a penis thing.

Downstairs - pretty dead at 4am
We went downstairs as upstairs was dying. It was more dead down here though. Probably 10 people were left. All the guys were vulturing on the 2 or 3 women left. Sad, sad, sad.

We danced romantically to the song “and …I had, the time of my life…” to the entertainment of the bar staff, then we left.

Coda
Through sheer exhaustion we left at 4.30am to go to the beach. The place upstairs was still busy. I’m not sure what this place is like at peak hour, but I would assume it is very packed – I would recommend this place for the older crowd who like their retro and house, while still being able to get away from the 18 year olds.

The Bedroom Nightclub Review

Assessment Time: 11:30pm – 02:30am
Address: 26 Orchid Avenue, Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast, QLD
Website: http://www.thebedroom.net.au
Door Policy: Casual OK. We were 10 asian guys and 4 girls, and had no problems getting in. No security scan.
Entry Fee/ Cover Charge: $10. Free on guestlist. God it’s a bargain here compared to $20/$25 in Sydney – I love it.
Guestlists: Send to the Marketing Manager – http://www.thebedroom.net.au/contact.html
Inside: Walk downstairs to a bar on the right, a seating area. Dancefloor and DJ on the left. Beds line the walls of the place, representing the VIP reserve areas. Dancefloor is of normal size to hold 100-150 people. There is another bar at the back as well and more standing areas to socialise. There are 3 or 4 podiums scattered around the dancefloor which surround the poles. There were even flashing tiles on the floor. This place had a bit of everything! Well thought out, I am impressed.
Crowd: Mixed, but mostly euros and aussies.
Music: House.
Atmosphere: Busy and loud on the floor. Everyone is dancing, its generally a very good vibe:
Closing Time: 5am
Video: Once we entered I had a look around:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline:
A dance buddy comes to visit
Ly had come down from Brisbane to join me in some dance tonight. (We met at Brooklyn Hotel in Sydney 3 months ago). So we just went around trying to dance with every girl we could lay our eyes on. Needless to say we didn’t get far, but we did have an awesome time dancing around. The music was good, no complaints and atmosphere was enough to turn any depressed maniac into a dancer. It wasn’t dead and it wasn’t too packed to not be able to move around – it was a good balance.

Main dancefloor for The Bedroom Nightclub Gold Coast

Dancefloor lights – check them out:
Prettiful:

Click here to view the embedded video.

She invited me up, I rewarded her by spilling drinks on her.
I was dancing, and she saw me from a balcony. I beckoned her down, but she wanted me to come up. So I came up and we danced. Sadly her boyfriend was right next to her. Grr. Why are they always using me as jealousy bait? Anyway we took some photos, and I accidentally (I swear it was an accident) swiped a drink and it spilled on her dress.

Coda:
Well, after spilling the drinks, that was time for me to leave. Everyone else was tired from the 3 hours of dance.

Recommendation:
I would come here again. Very good venue at a cheap entry price.