Candys Apartment - Best photo I could get of the main dancefloor

Saturdays “Shake Shake Shake” @ Candys Apartment (Potts Point, Kings Cross, Sydney)

Assessment Time: 01:30AM – 03:50AM
Opening Hours: Early – 5:00 or 6:00AM
Lockout: No lockout
Address: 22 Bayswater Road, Potts Point (Kings Cross) Sydney
Venue Website: http://www.candys.com.au
Promoter Website: Self Promoted
occurence: Open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and probably Sunday as well. Tonight’s review is for Saturday.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Pretty much anything is allowed, including dirty sneakers. Just don’t look drunk or cause trouble. It took about 10-15 minutes of lining up outside, and another 5-10 minutes lining up in the stairs to get inside. I didn’t exactly time it but its an educated guess.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20 standard. $15 on guestlist before 10PM. $15 after 2AM for everyone.
Guestlist: carol@candys.com.au – see website for updated guestlist details.
Inside: Tonight the entire place was open. Walk downstairs underground to enter the rear of the main dancefloor to hold 100 or so people. DJ on the far left. Upper lounge and dance area that runs on the left alongside the dancefloor to the DJ area, where you can also dance next to him/her. Bar on the right of the dancefloor. Lounges behind the dancefloor, and behind the lounges is the backroom and second bar area, where it is close off on smaller nights.
Cloak Room: $5 for all items.
Bar Prices: Didn’t drink tonight, though the line didn’t seem that long. No longer than 5 to 10 minutes to get a drink from the backroom. I would say the same for the main bar as well.
DJs: Slappin’ Plastic, Brojo le Fro, Ember, Smokin’ Brojo Mekhael, Teez, Diskoriot, Black tie Dj’s, DJ Frostii, We Can Solve Mysteries.
Music Style: Each DJ had their own different styles. The underlying style was house music, whether it be mixed with rock songs such as Chop Suey or recent house songs such as Barbara Streisand. It was definitely good enough and thumpy enough to dance to.
Crowd: Mostly caucasian crowd. Mostly young 18 and early 20 year olds.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment
Atmosphere: Dark and loud throughout the club. It was pretty mush packed on the main dancefloor the entire time we were here. The backroom didn’t receive as much attention, but half the time there was someone dancing there. It got pretty smelly in the backroom after someone vomited. The crowd here was well into the music back in the main room, and even one of the DJs was into it, drinking and taking in the crowd.

The backroom was open tonight - Candys Apartment Sydney

Video: Walkthrough – Side to the front DJ area. Jump into the front of the dancefloor through lounges to the backroom.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Video: 360 of the Main Room Dancefloor 

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Timeline
Straight into the Cloak Room
Last time I was here, my jacket and bag were stolen, so I buzzed right into the cloak room. If you had to put your bag somewhere, most of the crowd dumped their bags on top on one of the many speakers throughout the venue.

Loving the dance
I am loving this dirty heavy house music. I am dancing my chops off. Shuffle here, shuffle there, shuffle everywhere. I got up next to the DJ up on stage and did more shuffling – no security asked me to come down. Fuck yes, and the floor was a bit sticky up here, but on the main dancefloor it was all good to dance on. Screw those girls-only podiums in the RnB clubs! There was also just enough room to dance around and do your lovely dance moves – security ensured that the place didn’t get too  I suppose.

The Make Out Couch
So there is a couch out back near the backroom where couples sit down and make out. One of those really fancy looking couches from the Elizabethan age. anyway, two couples are making out, while a 3rd girl sat opposite them, staring, looking disgusted. haha, was she jealous much? Actually I would say the whole backroom area was make out central!

Humped by a fellow dancer
I’m at the front dancing away like a madman. It’s kind of impressive as people around are staring. So much so, one of the guys gets up and does his own dance as well next to me. Hurrah for more dancing! Then he does a complete turnaround and thrusts his hips at me repeatedly like a machine gun. Each projection of his hips and groin hitting my general groin/leg/hip area as well. After the third thrust into my body, I realised this wasnt some joking thrust that drunk guys do for fun. This was some seriously hardcore violent, earthquake 10 on the Richter scale, bone cracking, kind of hip thrusting. Not even Terry Crews would have been able to blast this one away. This guy was fucking crazy. Seriously fucking insane. Just not funny humping another guy dude. I kind of had to step back and away to another area.

Thinly veiled…
Later M, who is with me, is told by a random punter to ‘dance with the indians’ but in a very non-joking way. There was a birthday party where some indians as well who were dancing. Punter was a local Aussie. You can make your own assumptions here.

Arrivederci
Left 3:50 so we could make the 40 minute walk to Central train station. Haha.

Recommendation
If only this place was bigger. Music was generally good, but a handful of songs were not danceable to. Crowd was all into the dancing here, well except for some girls who were the majority of couch warmers. Also, some of the guys in here have definitely ingested something special in here, but what else do you expect in a dark club such as this. If you are, however, looking for a dark club with some good danceable dirty house music, this is a great alternative to go than the other underground club, The Rouge, down the road.

Saturdays @ Candy’s Apartment – 7.5/10

Civic Hotel Underground Pit Dance Area

Saturday. I am to play catchup with a friend, and he is at Civic Hotel, so here we go!

Adult Disco @ Civic Underground
Assessment Time: 01:35-01:45AM
Website: http://www.civichotel.com.au/pages/home.asp
Address: 388 Pitt St, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy:
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 we were told at the cashier, so we pretty much turned around to leave. She said “WAIT! WAIT!” and told us, that for the three of us, she would discount it to $15. This was surely a bad sign, but we did not notice. Before 11pm, entry is free.
Guestlist: None that I could find.
Occurence: Every Saturday
Inside: This place is of similar size of the Favela upstairs component. You walk in to the bar area with sofas and tables arranged in the same manner as a dine-in saloon restaurant in america. The dancefloor is in a pit, in the far back left corner, to hold about 80 people. It’s not very big.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: Did not drink
DJs: Unknown
Music: “Adult Disco” was the name of the event tonight. What kind of music was this? This was some really underground funky house music they were playing. Not commercial friendly at all, but even so, it was absolutely not danceable to at all. Ugh, but some patrons here were enjoying it. The short time I was here, I just felt my mojo being drained away from me. You can listen to the music in the video below.
Crowd: Definitely just adults. Lots of people in their 20′s, maybe 30′s. Mostly wogs/aussies.
Entertainment: No extra curricular things here.
Atmosphere: Dark, confined and not feeling the vibe at all.
Video: 360

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline:
In and out faster than a premature guy
Walked in and realised how shit the music was. Was not feeling anything and I and friends pretty much felt ripped off. Took the videos and photos and left

Arrivederci
Left to go to Shark Hotel up the road, which has at least danceable music.

Recommendation
This place is not for the person who has only heard music via the radio. For me, I could not tolerate it.. Perhaps this music is truly underground, but for me it is absolutely undanceable to – and danceability (if that is a word) is what I am here for. It is though great music to sway side to side with. I suppose I was not the target audience they were seeking, so I can’t blame them. There was a audience though who likes this music as the floor was pretty packed.

For the punter who visits rnb/house clubs, I can’t recommend this place at all. If you are going to visit this place, get here early to avoid paying the entry fee.

Adult Disco @ Civic Underground: 2/10