For years some of my friends have been attending Purple Sneakers but I was never into Indie music. Well my knowledge of Indie music was getting better from listening to Triple J the past few years, so tonight I think it was time to take the plunge to experience my first Indie club event, so here we go!

Masterchef: Purple Sneakers @ The Gladstone

Masterchef: Purple Sneakers @ The Gladstone

Purple Sneakers @ The Gladstone, Chippendale, Sydney
Assessment Time: 11:45AM – 02:45AM
Opening Hours: 19:00PM – 03:00AM
Lockout: None
Address: 115 Regent St, Chippendale, Sydney. Theres no real visibility that its called The Gladstone – all you see on the Verandah is www.aussiebar.com.au, which doesn’t even link to the Gladstone website. Apparently it only came under new management after a short stint as a strip club.
Venue Website: None
Promoter Website: http://www.boundarysounds.com
Occurence: Every Friday
Dress Code / Door Policy: anything goes, but everyone here is dressed in a very relaxed casual manner. I kind of almost felt overdressed with my collared shirt.

There’s even a 10 point rule list on entry which included things such as:
– No douchebags,
– No trashing of the toilets (The toilets became trashed anyway at the end of the night when a door was ripped off its handles, lol), and
– No pretentious behaviour.

Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $12 Full Entry.
Guestlist: There is a guestlist but I have no idea how to get on it or what it entails you to. You can try info@boundarysounds.com
Inside: The entrance to the venue is via the back. So, you first are presented with the back room of the Hotel/Bar, which resembles the rear of a typical small townhouse. Its like a tiny courtyard, with a brick shed to the right. The shed has wooden benches and plastic seats around the walls. Bricks lay around, and electricy and wiring is held down by gaff tape. BBQ in the corner. It really feels like you have walked into someone’s backyard, but they weren’t prepared for it. Continue walking inside to a hall where the cloak room is. Continue to the front where the bar is on the right, the DJs are in the left corner, and the dancefloor is in the middle. The dancefloor being a lightly carpeted area. Very danceable.
Cloak Room: $4 for all items
Bar Prices: I didn’t drink tonight, but the line was 1 or 2 people deep throughout the night
DJs: (In order of appearance per hour from 8PM) Retox, Erectro, PhDJ, SVU (Farewell Set), Joyride, Surecut Kids, The Holidays (DJ Set)
Music Style: Indie, Alternative Rock. M had no idea what any of these songs were, hailing from an RnB/pop background and he didn’t enjoy it. I usually listen to Triple J, so I had a fair idea what about half these songs were. Basically it was a complete mess of all these indie and alternative rock songs from the past 20 years, with no proper mixing. Most songs were played in full, and the crowd moment was often lost as a result. Songs that were heard were from R Kelly, Regurgitator, System of a Down, Art Vs Science, Friendly Fires, Yeah yeah yeahs, etc. These were the ones I recognized – but some songs played you just couldnt dance to at all.
Crowd: Mostly local Aussies. Surprisingly a few Asian fans were spotted. Most seem to be aged in their teens to early 20s, but I couldn’t tell.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment.
Atmosphere: Inside was as hot as an oven. There was definitely a huge build up of humidity in the room, and your body would have to change to an amphibian state to stay in there for long periods of time. It was pretty bad. The single fan and measly solo air conditioner did squat all with the situation. On the floor, empty cups and bottles lie strewn everywhere. The inside is pretty small, but its packed, and there is basically no room to dance properly – you could really only move or jerk your body around. There are no cleaners here apparently. Out the back is where you relax from the intense humidity of the inside, but you face another downer – cigarette smoke. The entire back courtyard and shed reeks of cigarettes. You can’t escape it. To top it off, there are also cups and bottles strewn on the concrete floor. It’s a filthy house party in the guise of a dance event. I am certainly not used to it, but a friend whom I met that night, certainly was. We were told that the monthly Purple Sneakers event in Canberra was much more cleaner, and that even the old venue at Abercrombie Hotel (which looked pretty dirty) was cleaner than this.

Entrance to the makeshift brickshed aka the chillout room

Entrance to the makeshift brickshed aka the chillout room

Video: Walkthrough Video

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Video: 180 of the back courtyard:
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Timeline
Friday the 13th!
The theme tonight was Friday the 13th, and there were free drink vouchers for the people who made an effort to dress up in theme. For those who had no idea about the theme, there was some fake blood at the cashier you could paste onto yourself. We opted for just some casual arm cuts. There was a bloody bride, but she refused to take a photo. Strange, maybe she was just here for a free drink.

It’s no longer winter in this tiny room
I don’t know if I reiterated this enough yet, but its stinking hot in the main room. The venitalation here is non existent, and they need to do something in here to fix it. Apparently the people in here don’t really mind at all. Most are here for the love of the music, because it certainly wasn’t danceable to. You would have to know the songs to enjoy yourself, and more importantly, plan your dance moves.

The back area of Purple Sneakers @ The Gladstone

Meanwhile out back people are happily smoking and talking away

Almost a fight – wheres the security?
Happily dancing, and we see a short dude forcefully push this taller dude, he may have been drunk. He yells and again pushes the tall dude. People step back. It’s been about 5 seconds and no security has come down yet. Oh wait, this place had no security. There was only 1 guy on patrol as far as I knew, and he wasn’t in the room. It was left upto the friends of both sides to break up the fight. The tall dude would have whooped his ass.

Not using a cloakroom
Asked the cash register lady if there was a cloak room. She said no, but i could try asking the bar if they would take care of it. So I dumped by bag on the dancefloor underneath one of the cheap pub tables. Only later walking by the middle walkway I saw that there was indeed a cloak room. That chick wasn’t very helpful at all. anyway, left the bag on the floor as it seemed safe. Came back to check on it, and it wasn’t there anymore!! :O

Someone had moved it to a speaker nearby, and my jacket, as well as M’s jacket, were placed nearby. Someone had gone through our stuff thinking that it was theirs or something, or they found out my jacket was too small for them. Who knows. It was a bit scary knowing someone had manhandled your posessions. Use a cloakroom everybody.

Make out central
There were people everywhere making out. It really must be a white thing.

Random girl dancing
So a girl stood up on the DJ booth and started dancing. Hilarious. Took about 5 minutes before the solo security guy found out and pulled her down. This place is pretty relaxed, that’s for sure.

Random girl dances on the DJ stand

Random girl climbs up and dances on the DJ stand

Multiple attempts to leave
Many times even some of the regulars did not know what songs were playing, so they would go outside to talk and relax. M wanted to leave, and I would suggest “one more song”, and then the DJ would rip out a song I knew, and we stayed a bit longer. Suckered. Then when a recognizable song plays, you could see the influx of people coming back into the dance room, and you would have no room to dance again.

So finally at around 2:30 the music was sufficiently shit enough to leave. We hover to my bag, where the jackets have luckily stayed put throughout. I put my jacket on and bend down to grab Ms jacket. I turn around, and there he is, grinding with some random drunk girl – moments later they are making out. Oh, great. I put the jacket down, take mine off, and resumed dancing again.

Arrivederci
We finally left 15 minutes later at 02:45AM. The DJ was really really playing some wierd shit and people were leaving anyway.

Recommendation
There isn’t really anywhere else for Indie fans to go to. If you are from the commercial side of radio, don’t come here.

Despite that I was into some of the music here and the somewhat friendly crowd, I probably won’t come back, as the venue itself is way too smokey/humid/messy for me, and some of the DJs here were just playing pure crap – they didn’t know how to mix or read a crowd to keep the energy going either. It is a shame, but you have to take this place as it is – it’s special in its own filthy way.

Purple Sneakers @ The Gladstone, Chippendale, Sydney – 2.5/10

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3 Responses to Purple Sneakers @ The Gladstone, Chippendale, Sydney: Friday 13th August 2010

  1. dr_stoopid says:

    Hahah

    “I turn around, and there he is, grinding with some random drunk girl – moments later they are making out.”

    One move check-mate!

  2. sydney jobs says:

    They will have the had gone through our stuff thinking that it was theirs or something.

  3. James says:

    This event has now moved to the Gaelic Hotel

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