with a local

Saturdays @ Club 22, Papanui, Christchurch, New Zealand

Assessment Time: 11:00 PMish – 1:30AM
Opening Hours: 8:00PM – 2:00AM
Lockout: Unknown, but we were told at 1:30 we were not allowed back in if we left.
Address: 22 Harewood Road, Papanui, Christchurch, New Zealand
Venue Website: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Club-22/121971104547871 There are no other websites.
Promoter Website: Self Promoted
Occurrence: Every Saturday since the club opened in April 2011. Club 22 is also open on Thursdays, Fridays as well. 
Outside Line: I don’t recall any line there. We got in after showing our Australian Passports. Security were friendly enough to give us some flack for being Aussie
Dress Code / Door Policy: The dress code was promoted as casual. Pretty much anyone can get in wearing their pajamas if they wanted to. Most people dressed casually or dressed smart casual. There were a handful of guys who had top hats. Marty has my punk wig on and it seems to be accepted. After 5 minutes inside the club I got asked by a second security guard if I was allowed in with wearing of my pirate hat, and I said yes. I was pretty sure I was targeted for being too sexy. So the hat policy is questionable. 
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $5 for both men and women after 10 O’clock. Before 10PM it was free entry tonight. Not sure if this was a short promotion or a permanent entry fee thing. Regardless, as I have mentioned in another post, $5 is ridiculously cheap compared to $20/$25 in Sydney, but the locals still don’t like it, as every single other bar/pub/club in the area country is free entry. The club is still also haunted by the scandal of $22 entry fees for guys and free entry for girls when it first opened. 
Guestlist: Unsure, but very unlikely as entry is only $5. You can try club22club@gmail.com and ask if they have bookings, but what would be the point. 

Inside: Walk inside to enter the main open room. Bar right on the opposite end staffed by 2-3 personnel, and to the right along the wall is an elevated area for about 8-10 lounges. The ceiling is quite high and on the far right wall is a floor-ceiling dance pole. Smoking and seating area is behind here as well. There is little barrier between the smoking area and the immediate area inside the club, so you will get a whiff of the smoke if you hang around here. The main dancefloor is contained within a room to hold approximately 160-200 people. Entry is via two doors, one at the entry and one near the bar. Within the room there is a second bar attended by 2 staff members. Along one of the walls is a bench but it pretty much is used as a podium. DJ booth is on the opposite wall to the bar.
Cloak Room: Cloak service is available according to the website, but I couldn’t find a cloak area. It is probably done at the bar, but I can’t tell, as I didn’t use the services tonight.
Bar Prices / Line: I didn’t drink tonight, but I did have to line up for water. The wait at the main bar was quite long at about 10 minutes. Inside was the same story. It was just a matter of waiting it out. We were told by some of the regulars that if you knew some the bartenders then you could get lucky and get a bit of extra alcohol for your buck! Oh damn.
Bathroom Facilities: Appeared quite clean, I didn’t have to wait.
Eviction Count: There were a handful of evictions that I did see, in particular one of a guy who was just drunk, and standing against the wall with his beer in his hand. Security were quick to kick him out, even if he wasn’t causing trouble. Me and Marty had a bit of a dance outside the main room as well, in the general bar area – but we danced a bit too vigorously and were asked by security to basically slow down the pace of the dancing for the sake of other people. Haha to be asked to stop dancing in a club.. amazing, but I guess it had to be done for the sake of the general public who weren’t here to dance. Theres quite a heavy police present inside and outside the club – the club has been noted to attract a lot of drunk people who wander the streets, urinating on innocent residents property, as well as to start trouble.
DJs: Resident DJ Mike T all night. Hooray for no song repeats!
Music Style: This was a mix of house and rnb i believe. Unfortunately my camera ran out of juice so I couldn’t sample the music tonight. Later in the night it was mostly house a mix of commercial and unknown stuff. It kind of turned me off when I wasn’t familiar with the tunes, and I wasn’t going to hang around in the stuffy room.
Crowd: Mostly a younger crowd here teenagers, low 20′s kind of crowd. The majority, if not everyone, are locals here, not many backpackers / foreigners were here. This is truly also a mixed crowd – Indians, Africans, Kiwis, us Aussies, Asians, Wogs, whatever goes, goes.
Ratio: A tremendous sausage fest ratio early in the night, but it did get a little better as the night picked up. Initially the girls were in the dance room but nearing the end of the night they were more in the lounge area of the club.
Entertainment: Hired professional pole dancers go up and do a show for us, and the way they dance… Oh My Lord-Of-The-Rings, they are good at what they do. A must see.
Atmosphere: initially early on in the night there isn’t much going on. People are slowly tricking into the club, and it only starts to seriously pick up in the dance room at around midnight. The whole venue is indeed purpose built for a club-like atmosphere. The lounges are here, the strobes and flashy lights, loud soundsystem, no smoke machine though. In the main dance room, the ventilation is quite poor here, and combined with the bustling crowd it gets pretty hot, very quickly. Just standing around and slowly swaying left and right is enough to get you sweaty and uncomfortable when the place gets packed. People are generally quite friendly and here to dance and have a good time. Outside in the lounge its more chilled, people are generally chatting or just .. chilling out.

Timeline
Outfits
We still had out outfits from New Years Eve – Wheres Wally, Punk Wig, Captain Jack Sparrow. It was the last night so we might as well dress up for the fun of it, ahha. Martin dons the Pink punk wig and I go for Jack Sparrow, without make up. I really wish that they had a socially accepted man version of eye-liner, but unfortunately they do not have such items yet. Regardless, the sole purpose of the outfits was to rip it up the only way we know how and leave New Zealand, before New Zealand makes us leave. Needless to say hooray these simple little costumes work wonders, and we are the life of the party damnit! Not only that, we created the damn party since everyone else wasn’t dancing at all. 

A brief history of Club 22 (as summarised by the many people who shared their stories with me)
- Earthquake hits Christchurch. Nightlife is gone
- Club 22 opens, 22 being the location on the street as well as the coincidentally the date of the earthquake
- Initially $22 for guys and Free for girls. A few weeks later it was $5 even after government intervention. Patrons have never let this down and the stigma still lingers, that that this club is out to get your money.
- Lots of drunk people can be found outside
- Huge fight late 2011 resulted in an increased police presence for patron safety.
- This is still the only good club in Christchurch.
- Some of the people don’t like coming here, but have no other choice and come here anyway. Whether people love it or lump it, they won’t forget this club for sure.
- We arrived.

Once Upon a time in Christchurch
This entire trip, pretty much every club that was visited in New Zealand was all Caucasian with perhaps some Maori people. However tonight was the first time we saw A GROUP OF ASIANS. Not just one group, but MULTIPLE GROUPS OF ASIANS. It only took until the last day of our trip to find out that Asian people were also hiding in Christchurch! What amazement. Imagine not eating rice for 10 days, and then suddently you see rice. (Obviously this entire paragraph only makes sense if you are Asian. Otherwise replace the word “rice” with your ethnic food of choice, be it savlouki, kebabs, hot dogs, samosa, etc. ) You can’t help but say hello.

I had to talk to these rice people, so we did. Later we find out one of the girls is from Sydney, CABRAMATTA… of all places! Amazzzing! hahahahaha it was almost like we were having a conversation with a random girl at Verandah Bar or Martin Place Bar on an Asian clubbing night – because there was a bloody good chance she would be from Cabramatta or Bankstown. LOL Her guy friend wasn’t from Cabramatta, but judging by the way he was giving us dirties, he might as well have been! My lord of the rings, he wasn’t friendly at all, even though I tried my best. So after about 5 minutes of one-way dirties, I think we made the wise decision to mingle somewhere else, before we got glassed or something.

We also met a handful of Internationals here, and they are exactly the same as in Sydney: “No English” is the reply when you talk to them. Ah yes, the universal phrase of “go away” exists here too.

Arrivederci
Eventually the stuffiness of the room was too much to bear. The ratio also dropped considerably after 1AM, so it was just a matter of dancing and making the most of it. We gave up trying to keep dancing while sweating, and left at 1:30AM.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
This was the only purpose club we could find here in Christchurch, so definitely come here for a dance. If you aren’t a fan of the occasional drunk person, stuffy rooms, or cover charge, an alternative venue is the Running Bull about 10 mins drive away, but not much else.

Despite all this, if you are able to take care of yourself and are with a group of friends who want a serious dance, then come here. I wouldn’t mind coming back here as I had a nice time, but only as there isn’t much else – do keep in mind the place doesn’t pick up until around 11:30ish, but the non-drunk crowd is quite friendly and ready to party in this somewhat city still trying to rebuild.

Rating : 6.5/10

Money Shot

“Kiwi Crawl” Pub Crawl, Queenstown, New Zealand:
Website: http://www.KiwiCrawl.co.nz
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $20. Includes 6 free drinks, pizza and entry to the venues that we go to.
Music Style: Most places had house/RnB, while some places were just bars to have a drink at.
Crowd: For tonight’s crawl, we had 2 Kiwis, and the rest were Australian, except for one American.
Ratio: 2 girls to 1 guy, though there were only 9 of us tonight, as it was immediately after new years
Entertainment: Our host was a big life of the party for sure.
Atmosphere: Lots of drink challenges and random street antics as one does when inebriated.

Timeline (of the various bars)
Started in the World Bar, Queenstown. Let me tell you, it is exactly like the World Bar in Sydney! Cocktails are served in teapots and everything, but this World Bar is more spacious than the Sydney one, albeit it’s only on one level, while Sydney’s Word Bar has three levels. A strangely familiar sight it was. So we just chilled out here and the organiser came up and told us only 9 people signed up for the pub crawl – but 6 were girls. Oh yeah!!
And so it began, the 9 of us on a pub crawl. A vast difference to the 500+ people who signed up only days earlier for New Years. We did our intros and well I don’t think I was going to go far. The advantages of a smaller group was that we got to have some double shots at the venues, hooray!

Random bar #1 – Double free shot on entry. Bought a “Money shot” where you shake the cocktail in your mouth and it tastes like PANCAKES! Amazing

Me: hello
Her: Hello! Blah blah blah blah
Her Friend: Hey! what are you doing? Remember what we said earlier? (wiggling eyebrows in a “you know what I mean”)

Oh dear lord, a pre-prep talk to watch over each other? On a PUB CRAWL?? Puhhlease!! 

Random Bar #2 – Free shot on entry. Got a $6 NZD Jagerbomb. Choice. Played some Strip Pool against a girl and I lost.. hard.

Strip Pool, halfway through

Bar 3: Altitude Bar – Double free shot on entry. Didn’t drink anything extra. There’s a dance pole right at the front of the dancefloor. Only a handful of people are dancing here and we just dance and do poses. This place wasn’t very busy as I thought it would be. Then again its a weekday. Top 40 here.

Bar 4: The Buffalo – A shot on entry. Can’t remember if it was double. Getting pretty sloshy and friendly. This place pretty much was the only consistent place that delivered some form of crowd and top 40 music, every night. Probably the general recommendation for the backpacker in this town. It was a lot of dancing, but the dancefloor is only of a medium to small size, and it does get a little warm in here.

Bar 5: The World Bar – Yet another free drink, and the night ends here. Surprisingly there are more people here than at the Buffalo. The larger dancefloor space is much better, with a dedicated DJ booth as well. Earlier in the night there is usually a Live Band playing popular Top 40 tunes for people to dance to, but right now its House.

Arrivederci
I sustained a minor injury the other day and had to retire early. Boo hoo.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
For $20 and guaranteed 6 drinks and entry to all the clubs listed (All the clubs were free entry anyway) it’s choice. Do it.

Anyway, I asked a foreign backpacker where the place to be is at on a Thursday night. “The Rimming Bull”, he proclaims! I’m sure in proper English that meant “The Running Bull”, which is, coincidentally is across the street from where we rented our hotel. So much win! Let’s check it out!

Crowd 11:30PM

Thursdays @ The Running Bull, Riccarton, Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand

Assessment Time: 11:10PM – 12:45AM
Opening Hours: Open during the day as a restaurant / Grill – 12:45AM
Lockout: Unknown, but there was one a lockout at 12:30 when I checked
Address: 1 Riccarton Road, Riccatron, Christchurch City, Canterbury, New Zealand. Map: http://g.co/maps/njtg8
Venue Website: http://www.runningbull.co.nz
Event Website: http://www.facebook.com/TheRunningBullBar
Promoter Website: Self Promoted by the venue
Occurrence: Every Thursday. DJ events also available on Fridays and Saturdays here
Outside Line: 2 people in front but we were in within seconds. We had to use our passports to be accepted entry. The drivers licenses were not accepted. 
Dress Code / Door Policy: Boys are pretty casual, with a handful with collared shirts with jeans. Girls in most part did wear their going out dresses and heels for a dance here. It is encouraged for guys to wear collared shirts and to not smell like B.O, and for girls to wear dresses. (According to the facebook page anyway)
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free all night.
Guestlist: None
Inside: Walk into the bar / dining area where tables and stools are aplenty. Bar is at the back opposite wall. This are has about 4-8 tables. To your left are some lounge spaces for 10 or so people. On the right is the “dance room” is how it is best described. It really is just a walled off room from the rest of the bar, where you can walk in and suddenly you are in a rectangular box to hold maybe 100 or so people where there are lights and a podium.
Cloak Room: None
Bar Prices / Line: Didn’t drink.
Bathroom Facilities: Pretty clean.
Eviction Count: None spotted
DJs: Sole DJ tonight. No song repeats thank god.
Music Style: Mostly Top 40, RnB and probably after 12:15ish the reggae / some other esoteric music was put on. Total mood killer, but it was apparently approaching closing time so that was how it was done.
Crowd: A mix of Christchurch locals and backpackers such as Marty and I, with the Irishman and his friends as well. But definitely a majority would be locals. Ages varied but mostly we are dealing with a young crowd – teenagers, low 20′s.

Ratio: Pretty even ratio through the night and it held its ground.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment.
Atmosphere: In the room itself there was barely enough people to get “lost” in the crowd, but it was definitely dark enough to be able to dance on your own without having too many eyes look at you. The volume isn’t as loud as proper clubs so you were able to have a chat as well, but still you could dance on your own if needed. Surprisingly it was pretty damn warm in here though! A lot of times throughout the night I had to come out for a bit of a cool down and breather, so take it easy on the dancing would be my advice here. The bar is quite the oppposite where its bright and pretty friendly. It’s not hot either and there are TV screens around so you can catch up on the latest Cricket scores. If you don’t like cricket, then suck it up. It’s bustling at the bar and people are pretty open for a chat.
Video: Very short music sample and walkthrough

Click here to view the embedded video.

Arrivederci
Left at closing time, which was 12:45!! Holy shit, that was early. An abrupt ending.

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
I would say this is more of a bar to have drinks and a good dance afterwards. It’s suited for anyone who wants to come for a drink or just dance, as the two areas are almost separated from each other, so you don’t get too disturbed by the loud music. If you aren’t into the modern day music or young crowd, it would be better to try Fox and the Ferret down a few blocks  (I don’t think there is much dancing there, just a live band with a small area to dance).

FIrst impressions of the bowl

Stereosonic Festival Sydney @ Olympic Park Showgrounds
Assessment Time: 3:45PM – 11:00PM
Opening Hours: 12:00PM- 11:00PM
Lockout: None
Passouts: No pass-outs are allowed
Address: Olympic Park Showgrounds, Homebush Bay, Sydney.
Venue Website: www.sydneyolympicpark.com.au
Promoter Website: www.stereosonic.com.au
Occurrence: Once a year since 2007, held early December / Late November, held in different capital cities.
Outside Line: Transport via train was no hassle, while lining up to get inside the stadium was pretty fast as well – I walked all the way to the right of the multiple gated entry where there was no lines.
Dress Code / Door Policy: Pretty much you can wear anything that is in good taste, but you can’t bring in alcohol, weapons, drugs etc. I was wearing a toothpaste costume.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $150 at the gate, while early bird ticket prices ranged from $110 to $135. The Sydney festival sold out a few weeks beforehand. A friend bought an e-ticket via a “promoter” and subsequently had his ticket invalidated at the gates – he was basically, conned and ripped off. he had to pay $150 at the gate for a brand new ticket. What luck. Always be careful when buying tickets not from Ticketek or Moshtix.
Inside: Think of the Easter show, and replace everything with music. Here is a map of the layout. In the stadium and some of the other smaller grassed stages, there are floorboards placed, so that you don’t stomp on the grass and get all muddy feet, in the event that it rained.
Cloak Room: There was one available but I didn’t use it today. Last year it was $3 per item.
Bar Prices / Line: I bought stuff but don’t remember prices – a can of Smirnoff red would be at least $10. These are typical for festivals.
Bathroom Facilities: At the stadium there were long lines for women, and not so long lines for the men. Outside there were plenty of port a loos for everyone (so as far as I am aware)
DJs / Artists: Armin van Buuren, Carl Cox, LMFAO, Empire of the Sun, Afrojack, The Bloody Beetroots, Avicii, Benny Benassi, Ferry Corsten, Dirty South, Kaskade, Dash Berlin, and more.
Music Style: Artists primarily reflected on electronic dance / dance culture music.
Crowd: People of all ages are here from all backgrounds to see their favourite act or to enjoy the show.

Atmosphere: I was at the stadium most of the time and it was pretty much packed the whole time I was there. On arrival there at around 5pm the moshpit was full, and no longer people were allowed inside. The floor of the stadium was also full and people were only being allowed to trickle in as people left. I had friends who came here earlier at 2PM and were able to just get places within the moshpit area. The crowd steadily built up through Afrojack and Benny Benassi sets so that we could watch LMFAO. The LMFAO set was arguably the peak of the numbers in the stadium, as well as my personal favourite set – simply because people were singing along and the guys were really into it. Highlights include actually popping champagne (“Champagne Showers”) onto the crowd, and the cameraman zooming into all the crotches during “Sexy and I know it” – Total gross out but hilarious at the same time. It was pretty bad that they came late 30 minutes late on stage, at the expense of shorter sets from AvB and The Bloody Beetroots. We stood around for 30 minutes just thinking.. when *are* they going to come on? Thank god that they weren’t cancelled. After the LMFAO set, quite a few people left the stadium (probably to Dash Berlin, whose set I heard was bloody amazing) – the rest of the people here were sticking around for The last two acts, or just had no idea who they were, and wanted to experience. I missed the entire Bloody Beetroots set, but got to experience the Armin van Buuren set. It was pretty good, but it would have been better if I was in the moshpit.
Video: Music Sample / Timeline

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline
Phone reception is simply atrocious
Pretty much from about 3PM onwards, I was unable to make ANY calls to ANY of my friends, just due to the amount of people here today. It totally sucked ass as I couldn’t meet up with my friends. So I just hung out with the friends I had already met earlier today. It was worse than new years eve, as new years eve call dropouts only last three to four hours – I was here for a good 5 or 6 hours! IT SUCKED HAIRY BALLSACKS.

Sydney is the biggest city, and so is this festival
Later in the evening, Stereosonic was declared Australia’s largest event in terms of attendance. I would say also probably the best overall line up in years for the general populace as well. I even had friends come out of festival “retirement” to come out for today. Never say never. You would be seriously missing out if you didn’t come out to see this line up. Like seriously. For the days upcoming beforehand, it was raining heaps, and lots of people sold their tickets, to the astonishment that today was a bright sunny day. A shame for them.

Packed to the rafters
All the main acts were at the main stadium, which was situated a few hundred metres away from the rest of the action. As mentioned earlier, this resulted in a lockout of the mosh pit area, the floor, and even a lockout of the stadium itself. I unfortunately got locked out of the stadium alongside some other folk. It was about a 30 minute wait of protesting and watching other people climb over the fence then we were finally allowed to be let in, under police supervision.

Video: The shitty side of Stereosonic (and other festivals): Lining up for ANYTHING. 

Click here to view the embedded video.

On someone's shoulders

Now I’m sitting raised on this dude’s shoulders, on the phone, looking out back at the crowd – the crowd are are all staring, cheering at me or however people react to seeing a toothpaste bottle arising into the air. My friend spots me (I couldn’t spot her) and finds me a few minutes later. That was awesome.

Condoms and other bad things
Here is a photo of one of the many condom balloons thrown around the place. Somewhere behind I could smell someone puffing on some sticky icky. A friend also got asked if he had pills. All in a typical day in a festival. LOL

Condom Balloon!

Life being a bottle of toothpaste
While a friend was being asked for drugs, people only were asking me if I had toothpaste. Then this was followed by people squeezing whatever part of my costume in order to excrete the wonderful, white, magic substance that is known as toothpaste. And the most common question I got was “where was the toothbrush?” – In my pants of course.

I didn’t get really hot until about after 3 hours, when I started to sweat profusely. It was quite disgusting, and I was glad that sunset finally arrived to cool me down.

Mixing it up with the crowd

Sticky, icky floor
Half of the time people are kicking cans away from themselves, to other people. So many people have spilled drinks in this heat, that the floor has become quite sticky. So sticky that beer cans are sticking to the bottom of the soles of my shoes. Yes, fucking BEER CANS ARE STUCK ON MY SHOE as I dance. It’s ridiculous.

Spotted by a fan?
Out of the thousands of people who came here today, surely one of them read this website. Well, someone did, and that someone found me. Haha! I was pretty amazed that I was spotted, but now that I think about it, I *was* in a Giant Toothpsate Costume

Arrivederci
Finished at 11PM. Transport out involved a long walk around the station, but we got on the first train right away, no waiting around. I was pretty exhausted and ready to go home. However, I got a call from a friend in the city….

Final Thoughts & Recommendation
A great lineup and as I said before one of the best I’ve seen that a festival pull. No idea how these guys will top it for next year, but I’m a shoe in for next year. Definitely a festival to go to.

Though I wish prices were cheaper as well as less of a requirement for people to have to be locked out of stadiums or be held up waiting for acts. I spent at least an hour of my time doing these things, when I could have listened to other acts.

She kinda looks like me

Intersociety “Dragonboat” Cruise (on that small boat)
Assessment Time: 07:30PM – 10:30PM
Cruise Hours: 07:30PM – 10:30PM
Route: Leaving Darling Harbour, around to Port Jackson for a few circles, and then heading back to Darling Harbour.
Promoter Website: A once off event held by multiple Asian oriented university societies
Occurrence: Once off event.
Dress Code / Door Policy: No dress code – anything goes. A handful of people dressed up as pirates (:o!!), some girls as asian orient princesses (I can’t really describe the dress)… and whatever else there was. Most people wore their normal casual attire.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $35 Early bird. $45 otherwise ( I think..)
Inside: A small almost tug-like boat. Bottom level to hold around 100-200 people, which is where the dancing happens. Upstairs is where the bar is, and a smaller open area about half the size as the bottom. 
Cloak Room: None
Bar Prices / Line: Standard beer, house wines, Bacardis, premixed spirit drinks were FREE all night long. The bar service is fast, so waiting is no longer than 5 to 10 minutes. Later in the night the line was barely there. Oh, there was also free food throughout the night. These uni cruises are full of win.
DJs:
Music Style: I didn’t spend much time downstairs to be honest – from the time I was downstairs, it was Contemporary RnB and Pop.. pretty typical to an RnB club.
Crowd & Ratio: Mostly Asian Australian (maybe 70%%). The rest were International Students from all over the world. Ratio wasn’t very promising. Actually.. the cruise had about 100 or so people – it unfortunately did not sell out – possible that it was run too early on the semester? Who knows.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment
Atmosphere: Initially everyone was upstairs, not dancing, but drinking. Eventually as people become more friendly with each other, and the music got louder, most people went downstairs to dance their hearts away. At the peak time of dancing (around 09:30PM) it was pretty packed you could say, and we were relegated to the edges of the dancefloor.. so in this aspect it was pretty cool. In all, the boat was about half capacity – I was hoping for a little more of a population.
Walkthrough: 9PM of dancefloor

Click here to view the embedded video.

Which boat?
There were two cruise boats. One awesome looking boat – the Lady Rose (which I went on previously), and a smaller not so good looking boat in comparison. Both boats had youngish looking people going on board. Sadly we were relegated the smaller boat. Boohoo! Such is uni life.

It didn’t sell out
I was kind of disappointed in the turn out. As mentioned, only about half the boat I would say was filled up with people. I mean.. $35 for freaking unlimited alcohol and food. Like people typically spend $100 or whatever on drinks and cover charge, and here its only $35, with entry to the after party after. My GOD.. take the chance while you can to go on these booze cruises you uni students!! The upside was that there was no chance that the booze would run out

Leaving Darling Harbour - with free energy drink for the night ahead

Friends who didn’t turn up
Spotted – A poor lonely girl playing with the mobile. Why, when there was free alcohol to be had? She explained that her friends ditched the cruise. Seriously? You buy tickets to unlimited booze, and you ditch it at the last minute. What a waste of money. Give that money to charity or something if you can blow that much money away! We ended up talking to the lonely girl about what the odds are at winning at the casino in the long term (the answer is ZERO, unless you’re playing Texas Holdem against other people)

Arrivederci

We finished, and some people kicked on to the after party at Home Nightclub.

Recommendation
Excellent value. Sad about the turnout. Alcohol though makes worries go away.

“Dragonboat” Cruise 2011: 5.0/10

Stereosonic Festival Sydney 2010 @ Sydney Showgrounds: Saturday 27th November
Assessment Time: 02:00PM – 11:00PM
Opening Hours: 12:00PM – 11:00PM
Lockout: Entry at anytime.
Passouts: No passouts at all.
Address: Sydney Showgrounds, Olympic Park. Basically walk out of Olympic Park station, walk down to the road and turn right.
Venue Website: http://www.sydneyshowground.com.au
Promoter Website: http://www.stereosonic.com.au
Occurrence: Once a year.
Outside Line: It probably took longer to queue in the train station to get out rather than queuing to get scanned to get in – aka there was plenty of people to scan you in. There was only one person in front of me when I was going in.
Dress Code / Door Policy: There is no dresscode, you can pretty much wear anything. Most people wore causal gear and every person here also wears sunnies. It’s a necessity. Taking your shirt off is frowned upon especially in the moshpit areas. Police were ordered to refuse entry to anybody not wearing a shirt upon entry. It didn’t matter as heaps of guys were walking around inside with their shirts off, albeit they almost all had shirts tucked away somewhere just in case they were asked to put them back on. In terms of costumes – there were the Mario brothers, a dude in a a full body red spandex suit thing, a dude walking around with a twister board around his neck, and Lil Jon. It was either me or there wasn’t much creativity in terms of dressing up. I was forced to take my outfit off before entering the venue. See more for details below.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $120 1st release, $125/130 second, $135 3rd and final release.
Inside: Basically if you have been to the Easter show here at Homebush, its all the areas converted to DJ areas. There were 7 stages including the main Stereosonic stadium itself. 2 of the rooms were enclosed, and the other 5 were in open plan areas. Needless to say all had large capacities. Thank god the weather held up today. There was surprisingly no silent disco area, despite some other cities having it. Complete setup at the website PDF map
Cloak Room: $3. This is probably the only fairly priced thing here today

Bar Prices / Line: Bar lines went very quickly if you went to the right ones. Some bars had massive long lines eg the ones outside Creamm stage, but other ones barely had anybody lining up, and you could just walk straight to the bar eg the bar outside Carl Cox stage near the DJ Hero playing area. Pricing was $9 for a Middie of Smirnoff. A total blatant rip off!!! Previous festivals had them at $10.50 for full strength Smirnoff black and we are hit with Middies. Stupid angry alcoholics who ruin it for everyone. Even so, its still a rort and a half – I didn’t feel the effects at all from the drinks. 
DJs: Tiesto, Calvin harris, Sebastian Ingrosslo, Benny Benassi, Wiley, Ricardo Villalobos, Luciano, Andy Murphy, Carl Cox, TV Rock and more. Complete line up found on the PDF map .. with about 50 acts listed
Music Style: Mostly Soft/Uplifting Trance, Dance, Electronic, various different House styles of music here. 
Crowd & Ratio: Mostly Anglo-Saxon crowd. Pretty much an even ratio here all around. 
Entertainment: Besides the main stages, there was a DJ Hero play area, a riding bull, human ten pin bowling (you are strapped inside a huge inflatable bowling ball) a passion pop photography area, food stalls, water cool down areas. There were also some amusement rides. 
Atmosphere: Pretty good/vibrant everywhere. Early on before 6PM most stages were at about half capacity or less. Browntown, OneLove and Sneakerpeeps stages experienced it the worst, where no more than 30 or 40 people would be dancing there at the same time. Of course, these were the smallest stages. I’m not into the Carl Cox style of funky house, but the people there who were into that really enjoyed themselves, and there were plenty of them. Main arena was atrociously packed near the mosh pit, and I never got a chance to go inside (they actually have a sealed off moshpit area here, quite generous in size). Outrage was openly busy throughout the day thanks to its location right next to the entry gate. Also Cream(field) stage was also full of patrons throughout the day and night, you couldn’t go wrong here. Tiesto atmosphere fizzled after a stage power blackout near the beginning of the set. Very unfortunate.

Video: Ten pin bowling

Click here to view the embedded video.

Stereosonic main stage during Calvin Harris set – just before Tiesto

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Riding the bull for 21 seconds (fail):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline

What did you wear James?
I hear you ask, my dearest reader. CAN I SAY I CREATED A REALLY AWESOME BUBBLE WRAP SUIT!?? Hell yes. I was inspired by this guy who walked into a bar just wrapped in bubble suit a few weeks ago, but he really didn’t make an effort. He just wrapped bubble wrap all around his limbs and torso and looked like a giant ROLL of bubble werap, which was fair enough. So I set to make my own. Imagine 3/4 length shorts, a blazer constructed from individual pieces of bubble wrap complete with hood and velcro buttons. Imagine a 4 piece overlaying skirt to flow over my delicious legs. Imagine your shoes entirely wrapped in bubble wrap. THIS WAS MY SUIT.

wearing the bubble suit after the festival

Did I also mention that this amazing suit was rejected by security?

Huh? A costume rejected at the gates… .At a festival?

Yes.

Rejection I: Security Talk
“Are you serious? What are you meant to be – bubble boy?”  - The first words out of his mouth.
How do you answer that question – what am I supposed to say? “No, I’m superman/Ironman but I couldn’t afford spandex/Iron so I got bubble wrap”. Of course I said yes, I was bubble boy.
Fun Nazi Security: “NO. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED INSIDE WEARING THAT. TAKE IT OFF AND GET CHANGED.”
James: “What do you mean? it’s a festival. You can wear whatever you want”… (Security guard is now being a real asshole)
Fun Nazi Security: “I don’t like people dressing up because I was raised in a world where costumes were only for the circus freaks, and because i was such a freak I wanted to join the circus, but I was rejected and now I am taking out my anger on other random people.”. Well, he didn’t say that but he might as well have – but he repeated to me that I wasn’t allowed in.

Rejection II: Police talk
Police officers: “That’s a pretty cool outfit. why are you taking it off?”
James: “Blah blah… fun nazi security is mean blah blah blah”
Police officers: “That sucks. There were three guys painted in blue body point. They were sent home as well”
James: “Oh Rly?”
Police officers: “They were coming in as smurfs”

How can you deny smurfs entry into a festival????? SO COLD

Rejection III: Security Talk II
I’ve walked back to the same security guy.
Fun Nazi Security: (Shaking his head in disapproval at me) “Seriously, bubble boy? what were you thinking??”
James: “I dont know” 
Fun Nazi Security: “Unbelievable. Get in.”

It’s one thing to politely tell someone they aren’t allowed in, but to actually question and look down upon me based on my outfit is bloody outrageous. You f*cking ASSHOLE!! Really fucking frustrated at his attitude.

Post mortem I was told the next day that the Smurfs got in later. This suggests that it was more of a security guard being a fucking asshole issue rather than a Stereosonic being a party pooper and not telling anyone issue.

Rock, Scissors, Paper
I’m wearing an attractive PINK LEI around my neck and some boys I walk by want a piece of it! Oh really do they. They wanted it. I refused. Why should I give it to them? They challenged me to a ROCK SCISSCORS PAPER duel. The winner would get to keep the LEI.

My Pink Lei with a t-shirtless dude.

Well, being the man of honour, I had to oblige to his challenge – and so the gauntlet was thrown down.
Challenger: “Before we start, which one are you going to be?”. A strange question to ask someone. Was it a trick?
James: “I’m going to be ROCK”
Challenger: “Ok, ok!”
Rock…… Scissors…… Paper!!
James uses ROCK, as promised.
Challenger has thrown out SCISSORS.
ROCK smashes SCISSORS !
James is confused to why Challenger didn’t use paper.
James wins. James keeps the LEI. +55 HP
James earned the UNDEFEATABLE award.

So anyway, if there’s a lesson to be learned in all of this, its the most obvious one – and that lesson is that ROCK. ALWAYS. WINS. I mean really – do you think you can beat a rock? HELLOOO.. It’s a freaking rock!!!

All the asians are at the cream stage, lol
OK this isn’t really true, but all my Asian friends who I bumped into or tried to catch up all were at the Creamfields stagge at one extended point in time. It’s the music they were playing – I don’t know how to describe it – classic uplifting trance I suppose is the best way to put it. I certainly had a good 1 or 2 hours here dancing to Aly and Fila, Sied van Riel.

My starjumps moment
Also, at the Cream stage, I did starjumps on top of the overhanging walkway above the DJ stage.. and lots of people did starjumps as well below. It was awesome.

Cream stage just before I did some star jumps to the crowd below

Toiletries are upstairs too
Don’t we all hate lining up for the bathroom! So all day we avoided queues. Queue at a bar? We walked the 5 minutes to the other bar on the otherside of town with no line and got our drinks right away. Queue at the toilet? We hated the portaloos that were setup as you risk walking into a smelly one. So we went in the stadium, walked up some flights of stairs and found that the in-built stadium toilets were readily available for use. Since not many a people came up here, not only were there no lines at all here, but also they were pretty clean throughout the day. Pretty cool!

Showing the DJ love
Met up with a friend at one of the dying stages. There are less than 10 people in this room. After some stupid dancing, we realised nobody was up at the front dancing – it was decided to show the DJ some love!! Ran right up and jumped around for a good 10 seconds until the DJ realised he had some fans. An acknowledgement and that was it. It was really loud as well, I had the earplugs on but my whole body was shaking here, and I ended up getting a serious headache for the next half hour after we left the area. It was that bad – I don’t think I’ve ever had a headache from dancing too close to the front before – or its just been a really long time since I remember.
Where’s Wally?
I found him.

Tiesto fail
Tiesto – what the majority of people came here for, and it was my first time to see him. I didn’t know what to expect – I got familiar with his classic tracks and songs from his latest album, but only a lot of trance was being played instead of the classic tracks. It left some parts of the set a bit .. i dunno.. stale. I’m sure it was going off near the front. Anyway maybe about 30 minutes into the 2 hour set, the power cuts off!!! Holy crap. Silence for a minute and then the music is back up, but the video clips that were playing behind Tiesto were replaced with default clips that were being played in previous acts – BORING! Also for a good total of 30 minutes at least, tiesto stepped offstage to let the music play. He was probably upset that Stereosonic’s Audio Video system monumentally screwed up. That, or he was playing from a CD.

Arrivederci
Left at closing of Tiesto – some of my friends had already left only an hour into set – they were disappointed in Tiesto. 

Recommendation
A strong lineup, very good weather make it a good day out. Of course, only for house/trance lovers of music. Very disappointed in the Tiesto set – I had really high hopes for it. Also some of the smaller stages could have done with more people.

Also, the security guard who gave me attitude for wearing my bubble outfit and then not letting me in was such an asshole. Major points lost. Whenever someone asks me about Stereosonic you are the first thing that comes to my mind. Also stereosonic need to tell security what the dress code is. Total fail.

Stereosonic @ Sydney Showgrounds – It would have been 7.5/10 but due to the dress code incident, only 6.0/10. I really had tinge of bitterness throughout the day after that.

Gallery:

Clubbing with James Tran – in a nice magazine format [PDF ~ 1.5MB]

It was created as for one of her 3rd year university subjects in design.

To contact Jen, visit the link below:

http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/portfolios/users/1440/#/contact/

Unbelievable.

Meanwhile, people up in the Gold Coast, Wollongong still enjoy $10 entry fees….. In Melbourne, the max is $20 as far as i know. FUCK Sydney sucks sometimes. I hope other promoters don’t up their prices as well thanks to this action. Otherwise, it is just fucked up.

I wrote an article for the I Heart Uni Magazine, listing clubs to recommend, for their edition which comes out this week. Article was submitted a few weeks ago. Target audience was asian uni students and I was pretty much restricted to outside the CBD. Quite difficult as Asians are as rare as hen’s teeth in the cross or on oxford st.

So anyway, my recommendations were:

1. Havana for Friday and Saturday: Havana Fridays for RnB is no longer. I went to their final night and it was shit as. For Saturdays, my recommendation is still to go here, but the crowd is still Euro and the music still House and Trance if you are into that.

If to find a replacement, I would say Slide Bar on the monthly ‘Bounce‘ Korean night events are the way to go. Unfortunately, they only come once a month.

Also, The Tunnel have RnB on Fridays, but I have not been yet to ascertain a recommendation.

2. Moulin Rouge for either Friday / Saturday: I wouldnt send an RnB lover here. They all hate it. If you like house and if you like dancing, then yes check it out. It’s a great dirty atmosphere. If you don’t like to dance, then avoid this place, as it is quite loud. Crowd is Euro/Aussie

3. The Gaff on Tuesdays: The Gaff Tuesdays is one of the best all round venues I’ve been to. People, cheap drinks, friendly people, wet t-shirt comps and some dancefloor action. It’s good as a safe recommendation for people on Tuesday nights. I still hold this as a recommendations. Crowd is still backpackers.

Thoughts
Most importantly, a good night is usually when you are in an open mood to meet people, and have fun with or without alcohol.

On the way there, one of the girls who was already drunk had spewed her guts out at Atarmon and so she sent her home along with her 6 other friends. A bit of a downer but we marched on to destination

We finally got there, and it was already roughly 1am. We are greeted by the birthday boy, and he begs us for dancers to join him in the dance festivities as nobody was dancing. Oh, no problem we were going to dance for sure

We got there an the place is all guys, half gay half straight. Oh well. Dance, dance, dance and afterwards we were over the dancing and left after 90 minutes because it was all guys.

-The End-

So anyway, we are dancing casually, and suddenly an old asian man is dancing like a madman! His wife is looking at him with dismay, and I think.. “I like this guy – I want to be like him when I grow up”, so I joined him. Here’s the video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The old man is the dude on the right. Seriously

Right afterwards, security warned us that we should take photos quicker, as they “dont like that sort of thing” (the dancing) in here. I wonder why a DJ is installed here then!

Recommendation
This place is just a bar, and nothing more. Pretty nice views though

With a bartender. It's easter long weekend!

Spending tonight at Surfers Paradise, and tonight the venue is The Bedroom! So here we go!

Saturdays @ The Bedroom

Assessment Time: 10.30pm – 3:00am
Opening Hours: 10:00pm – 5:00am
Lockout: 3:00am lockout for clubs up in the Gold Coast
Website: http://www.thebedroom.net.au
Address: 26 Orchid Avenue, Surfers Paradise Gold Coast Queensland, Australia
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual was ok. Jeans at a minimum. A female friend of mine was able to get in wearing thongs / flip flops / Havianas / whatever you want to call them / sandals.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $15
Guestlist: Do submit via the website. Events are on everyday I think.
Inside: On entering, there is a lounge and bar to the right. Stools and area for about 50 people. In front and to the left is the second bar, DJ and dancefloor to hold about 200 – 300 people. Carpeted areas around as well to hold more people. Podiums spotted around and beds. Along two walls are VIP ‘beds’ of single and double/queen size variety. These need to be booked in advance via the website. Late in the night the beds are open for all when everyone leaves.
Cloak Room: None
Bar: No recollection of prices
DJs: TyDi was the special guest DJ for tonight for an hour. At the moment he is Australia’s #1 DJ.
Music: House
Crowd: Caucasian – mix of locals and tourists. Handful of asians and other nationatlities.
Entertainment: Waitresses dressed in bunny ears for Easter and on top of this, corsets and super short skirts / and or lingerie. Enough said, and TyDi was coming tonight!
Atmosphere: Cockfest at first then around 11-11.30 it seriously picked up and got packed. Good ratio afterwards.

DJ booth at The Bedroom Nightclub Gold Coast

Videos:
Walkthrough around 10:30pm. It’s dead at the moment but it does pick up later.

Click here to view the embedded video.

360 view

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline:

Podium victory
I have managed to find myself standing on one of the front podiums. Here at The Bedroom, everyone is up for a party, and so everybody wants a go at the podium. So right now, I am standing with 3 other people on a small podium. I didn’t like this sharing of space, so in order to get rid of the two girls, I spoke to them. I was being pretty sleazy and they soon left the podium. There was now one guy left. I pushed him to the girl at the front and they shortly started making out and left the podium. Blah, I really am a matchmaker. Well, it’s just me now, so I do my little dancing around.

Someone tries to steal my podium!
A group of indian dudes are lurking at the podium and send one of their own to dance with me. Then he slowly tries to push me off with his ass! His ass is pushing me closer and closer to the edge, and when I realised what was happening, I wasn’t too happy. I went up to the front of the podium, and just danced just a little better than he did – arms and legs flying around. That’ll show him. So much so that the poor dude had no way to get in front of me at all. HA! So he left and nobody else dared tried to take my precious podium. I got bored of being awesome, and so I left the podiumt..

Is she a mum or something more?
Let’s play a game. Dance with as many randoms as possible. The first few were total fails. Then suddenly I spotted a 30 something year old dancing on her own. We dance and pretty soon locking lips. I think it’s time for introductions:

J: Im James
Mum: I’m Mum. How old are you?
J: 26
Mum: Oh, I’ve dated a 28 year old
J: Oh really ??
Mum: Yes! Actually, I have four kids. My eldest son is 26…. and he has a child too!

OMGWTFBBQ. I am hooking up with a grandma!!! JESUS CHRIST!!!

J: Oh wow. How old are you?
GrandMum: I’m 52 years old

HOLY SMOKES BATMAN!! DOUBLE MY AGE!! My own mum is 56!!! Right now I’m speechless.. Have I committed a moral crime?  Certainly this couldn’t get any better or worse??

J: What are you doing in a club?
GrandMum: Just dancing. I’m recovering from cancer – my hair is just a wig.

Great… she is telling me her entire life story now. At this point in time, I have pretty much lost all shame, and keep up with the courtship. I SWEAR SHE LOOKED AT MAXIMUM 36 YEARS OLD. Certainly got me fooled, as other guys were trying to hit on her all night as we danced. Amazing. I wonder if I will be still clubbing at 52. I would definitely need a wig of some sort at that age to fit in more. Or when I’m 52 I could just check out all the RSL’s and hook up with random nonagenerians and centenarians. I seem to be well on my way.

The TyDi set
I was busy macking on my girl but from what I could remember, it was pretty awesome set – nothing to complain about and whole crowd just kept going and going.

Arrivederci
We left at 3am, TyDi had already finished his set, and the crowd was getting more and more sausage like.

Recommendation
Music was excellent. My asian friends didn’t like it. So only come of course if you’re into house/electro whatever you want to call it. Crowd was generally pretty friendly as well. Combined with a pretty good venue for clubbing and TyDi, The Bedroom is 8.5/10

.

Sin City Nightclub Gold Coast

It was panic after booking the plane tickets – Clubs in Sydney were closed on Good Friday. But what relief to find out the clubs in Surfers Paradise all opened after midnight – score! So off we went to Sin City nightclub – here we go!

Easter Good Friday @ Sin City Nightclub
Assessment Time: 12:30-3:00am
Opening Hours: 12:00am-5:00am (Special opening times due to Good Friday)
Lockout: 3:00am
Website: http://www.sincitynightclub.com.au
Address: 22 Orchid Ave, Surfers Paradise Gold Coast, Queensland Australia
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual ok.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $15 standard. $10 or possibly cheaper on guestlsit
Guestlist: See website. They have events everyday to which you can submit guestlists to.
Inside: Walk in with a bar on the left with podiums for girls and tables. On the right is the main dancefloor and DJ area. Dancefloor holds about 100-150 people. Elevated platforms around the columns. Balcony like area, and second bar as well on the far end. VIP lounges in the back corner. Everything is carpeted except for the dancefloor.
Cloak Room: None offered.
Bar: 12 Tequila sunrises and 12 Chatreuse shots for a total of $243
Music: A mix of modern rnb and commercial house. There is also some top 40 music.
Crowd: Being surfers paradise, mostly backpackers or people holidaying this weekend up in the Gold Coast. Most are of caucasian background.
Entertainment: All the waitresses are dressed in corsets and really short skirts / lingerie. Enough said. There are also permanent podiums for dancing on.
Atmosphere: Considering it was Good Friday, did not expect a big turnout, but since it *was* Surfers Paradise – there were a billion backpackers looking for a place to party!
Video: 360 of Sin City

Click here to view the embedded video.

Timeline:
No Photos of the waitresses
I was so excited that the waitresses were wearing lingerie so I took a photo of a waitress and she SNAPPED at me. “No photos, you have to ask” she yells at me. Fair enough. I deleted the photo and asked for a photo. “NO” she says curtly. How did I not expect that answer. So anyway, always ask before doing

My hat is popular with backpackers
I am dancing with my friends, and not even 1 minute on the dancefloor, two girls have already asked to take a photo with me. Seriously, why? I am just wearing a hat. Well I seem to be the only one wearing one in here, but I found it strange they wanted a photo with me. It might be their pick up line, but they didn’t want to talk to me after the photo. Really really strange.

Later throughout, random people just pluck the hat and put it on and dance with it. It’s for me to give out to others, not for you to pluck! Way too many men chose my hat for my liking that night.

Fight!
We are hanging out in the dancefloor and suddenly a fight broke out, right next to us! Usually in a fight you step back 5 or 6 steps. This one turned from a fight of 2 or 3 people to a 5-8 peron brawl, requiring as many steps back as possible. It was going off for a good 20 seconds before security jumped in to save the day. It was one of the most vicious brawls I’ve seen in a nightclub, probably because we were right next to it. A minute later, everyone is happily dancing again.

Sexism

Ladies only on the podium - SEXIST!!

This sign says it all – total sexism!! Well, I got up anyway, for a photo.

Take THAT you sexist nightclub!!

Arrivederci
We left due to too much drinking.

Recommendation
Atmosphere of this place is very good, and the crowd is pretty friendly. Good music for everyone here also adds to the atmosphere. Cheap entry too.

Sin City Fridays – 8.0/10

Sydney Habour Bridge - 'We on a Boat' Cruise

Friends invited me onto this cruise – A reggae/funk dance cruise – I’ve never been on a day cruise and I’ve never been to a reggae event – so I put on my Mexican outfit and off we went – here we go!

We on a Boat – The Lady Rose Catamaran
Website: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=318543987561
Cruise Times: 1pm to 6pm
Course sailed: Departing King St Wharf, Darling Harbour, the boat sailed north then East under the harbour Bridge, past the Opera house to hang about Jackson’s bay, circling around the entire course twice before coming back to King St Wharf.
Weather Conditions: Sunny throughout the entire cruise. Humidity low and it was warm enough to not be afraid of massive sunburn.
Dress Code / Door Policy: anything goes. Most people wore casual shirts, shorts. I had worn a mexican sombrero complete with my homemade poncho
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Tickets were available from Moshtix for $35 plus booking fee. At the door they were $40 or $50 I believe.
On Board Inside: This was a 2 level boat with a 3rd roof top level. Today, as the event was not sold out, only the bottom and rooftop level were open.
Cloak Room: None available. There were not many people anyway so there wasnt too much risk in leaving stuff lying around.
Bar: Didn’t drink today.
DJs: Nick Toth, JC, Levins, Fasmwa, Naiki, Di Tha DJ, Mickey Morphingaz
Music: Reggae and Dancehall on the top level the whole time. On the bottom level was also the same, with some funk and old school rnb thrown in.
Crowd: About half the crowd were Africans, and the rest of the crowd were split between whites and a contigent of asian dancers who were here, I am guessing, for the modern rnb, but of course, did not get it. Various ages between young and old. Mostly late 20′s or 30s.
Entertainment: There were MCs on both the rooftop deck and the bottom level. Often the MC would call upon the ladies to jump in front of the DJ to participate in games such as booty shaking competitions, grinding competitions, and reggae dancing styles. It’s truly amazing to see girls out there willing to participate in these games sober. All the men love it.
Atmosphere: Top level was relaxed party. People are dancing about on the chairs and on the floor, but in a way that can only be achieved by playing reggae and dancehall. (It’s hard to explain, you probably have had to be there to know what I mean) Most of the people were here for a dancing good time, and only a handful of people were sitting down the whole time. On the bottom level was different, as it was totally dead for most of the cruise. There was on average about five to ten people at the same time on the floor. At peak, the asian dance contigent started to dance when the funk music came out, and they pretty much had half the boat attendees gaping in awe as they go about their dance moves.

Top Level - We on a Boat Reggae Cruise

Breakdancers Bottom Level

Timeline
Sea swaying
Most of the time was spent on the top deck where the weather was sunny perfect, and people are dancing around. The boat often rocks, and being on top of a small vessel meant that the effect is multiplied, so there were many moments where everyone would sway back and forth a step or two to keep balance, as the ship swayed. At one point early in the cruise, it swayed so much that the DJs Macbook fell off the table and onto the floor. bang! Luckily it was still working after that fall – otherwise we would have been in massive trouble if we had no music.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The celebration of booty
The MC, throughout, always is encouraging the women to come up to dance, shake their booty:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is then followed up by asking if any of the men want to “ride” the booty. The women are happy to play along – amazing that the women don’t care! I like this kind of happy environment:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Smelly whiffs of wind
Often as well, for a reason unknown, we would encounter a whiff of dirty air, which basically smelled like someone had taken a massive dump. One could assume that it was coming from the bathroom, but not that many people would have had a massive dump, right? So it could have been the harbour giving off rotten egg gas, or whatever gas is given out that makes sea passengers sick. In any case, it was gross whenever it happened.

So you think you can dance with Don
For season 2 of So You Can Think You Can Dance Australia, there was Don, the B-Boy who was eliminated early from the top set of dancers. Well, we spotted him on the cruise and he was nice enough to take a photo with us!

With Don from So You Can Think You Can Dance Australia Season 2

He said he thought I was awesome, dressing up as a mexican and all, and even questioned if he should be ‘famous’. lol modesty. Here are some breakdancing clips from his crew:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of the guys wants my hat
The sombrero is getting in the way of dancing, so I put it down. One of the Djs asks if he can wear it, sure I give it to him to wear for the rest of the cruise. At the end of it, he offers me $10 for it. HELL NO, I paid $15 for it. I like it. He still wants $10 for it. Two asians negotiating on a price for the transfer of a Mexican hat on a reggae cruise in Sydney. A funny sight. I ended up keeping the hat.

He wants to buy my sombrero. nope, not gonna happen

Arrivederci
As we head back into wharf, the DJ plays “Im on a boat” by the Lonely Island, and we all go mad. Its great.

Recommendation
Only if you like reggae and dancehall music. Don’t come alone unless you like to make new friends. Other than that it was a very good vibe upstairs, especially combined with the great weather, but downstairs was a downer. If more people came it would have made it a raging cruise on both levels.

We on a Boat Party Reggae Cruise – 5.5/10

I Love Uni White Party - Home Nightclub

I’ve been asked to check this University event out. A combined effort of all the universities, targeted for students who had just had their first O-Week. Well, considering my own O-week was about 8 years ago, I was wondering whether I should go. Then.. on the promo poster were the magic words: “WHITE PARTY”. Can anybody say GANDALF DA WHITE IS BACK??!! Got my dancing partner C to come along and so off we set our dancing merry feet – here we go!

I Love Uni White Party @ Home Nightclub

Assessment Time: 11:00pm – 3:00am
Opening Hours: 9:30pm – late (4-5am?)
Website: http://www.homesydney.com.au
Address:  Cockle bay wharf, Darling Harbour, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: White attire only. However people who were not wearing white were still allowed in, despite warnings that people were not going to be allowed in.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $15 presold tickets (sold out). $25 at the door. The girl at the counter liked my outfit and I asked for a discount for having such an ‘awesome’ outfit.  She lowered my entry fee to $20. Score!
Guestlist: none
Inside: The White Party event was for the main arena room to hold 500 or so people. All the other rooms were closed. Later after midnight, the other trance / house / rock band rooms were opened up for the general public.
Cloak Room: Did not utilise cloak room today.
Bar: Didn’t drink tonight
DJ: Unknown.
Music: RnB initially in the main room. After around midnight, a change of DJ’s and an opening of doors to the public for sublime ensure the RnB was killed, and house and trance/ house took over for the rest of the night. It was strange because at one point in the night, a singer came out and sang some house songs, it was so bloody bizarre – how could people dance to this?? The small room upstairs was also used for a local rock band gig. I have never seen it done like this – what has happened to Sublime?? I was disappointed in one’s choice of music selection to dance to after the rnb stopped.
Crowd: Lots of asians for the rnb component, with a sprinkle of other nationalities. Almost all are uni students. Of course, as rnb is killed, the rnb lovers left and the ratio became a mixed bag of everything – Whites, Asians, Indians.
Entertainment: MC and professional male dance crews. Wow, they actually *do* hire men to dance. They were more house dancers but were pretty good at what they did.
Atmosphere: Main room was always happening. The other rooms later in the night were only so so. The sublime room was the only other somewhat happening room for the trance lovers.

Video: – 360 view at around 2am,
Taken by C – you can see me for 2 seconds dancing with a random dude

Click here to view the embedded video.

Keep reading on for Gandalf’s adventures!

Timeline

Gandalf is back
It’s been 10 weeks since I took over Sensation White Melbourne.. and now it was time to take over Australia’s largest club. (yeah, it really is the largest one). As I line up, people in line are pretty much staring at my awesome outfit. People left right centre are taking photos of me and with me, and I still haven’t stepped into the club yet! I think the outfit is alright. I still like my pirate one better.

No usyd represent?!
This was a joint university thing. There were placards everywhere with “I <3 UNSW”, “I <3 UTS”, and “I <3 MACQ” .. but where was “I <3 USYD”??? Nowhere, my friend. I couldn’t find any placards. What a travesty!! Well, someone has to represent!

Photobooth is designed to steal your money.
Met some girls and we jumped into the photobooth for photos. It’s 8 dollars!! Jesus H. Christ what a rip off. So in goes 1 dollar, 2 dollars.. a few more.. until it says there is $1.50 left. Chuck in a dollar and it doesn’t accept it. Throw another $2 coin and it just swallows it. Oh my god.. what a crafty little machine this was… eating our money and yet not producing photos!! What a load of horseshit! Meanwhile, immature teenage boys keep peeking into the booth, praying that we are having an orgy of some sorts. Ha, one can only dream.

I have many many fans. Most of them guys.
A lot of guys come up and say things like ‘awesome outfit’, ‘can I have a photo?’, ‘JESUS!’, or anything along those lines. I like them, I take photos and usually we part. But shit, this one particular guy followed me around half the night! After we had our photo I dug into the main room and beelined to the middle. I turn around he is right behind me, following me! Fair enough, so I stop, but he stops as well. He wants to hang out and dance with Gandalf. My golly gosh. Biggest grin on his face everytime I looked back at him. He’s a fan of me, big deal. I had a suspicion he could have been gay, but I will never know.

He stalked me around the place

Getting up on main stage.
People are jumping up on stage and a random girl I met has jumped up for dance. Other people who are trying to get up are promptly taken down by security. I decide to give it a try, since I have the best outfit tonight and all. I crawl up onto the stage and stand up in front of the crowd. Everyone cheers, but within 2 seconds the security detail tell me to get off. So so unfair. Meanwhile the random girl is left ALONE up on stage to dance. She isn’t even dancing. I would call it swaying her body left and right, with the occasional booty bump to add flavour. She was obviously loving this attention. Godamn some things in life are unfair. One day I will be allowed up on stage!!

More guys follow me to take leftovers
Most places I went in the main room, guys are following me. I am noticing a trend. Girls come up to me and talk, and then these guys are swooping in left right and centre to be my wingman. I didn’t ask for this! Oh well, what are you going to do.

Girls don’t like hairy guys
I love this outfit. I walked by a few girls (and this only happens with girls) .. and you can see the look on their face as I walk by. Their entire face screws up into the ‘what the f*ck?’ look, or occaisionally a girl would turn around and see me coming – they literally YELP in shock / fright about this menacing wizard walking past. It’s quite entertaining for me. haha

Boob Squeeze War!
Yeah, a random girl squeezes my boobs without permission. I find that unfair, so I naturally grabbed and squeezed her boobs back without asking her. She REELED BACK in horror and gave me the DIRTIEST look ever. hahahahahahhahahaa..  how does it go – eye for an eye?

.. so take off all your robes
It was getting hot in here, so off went the cape and wigs. I felt like a free man. Meanwhile the wigs and cape sit near a group of 8 or so asians, who stare at me, C and her friend dance. They are literally gawking at us. I would probably have been doing the same thing back when I was 18/19, praying one day I could dance like that.

Getting pretty hot.. took off the beard

anyway they seem bored and decide to do what any normal bored person does at a club – PUT ON SOMEONE ELSE’S OUTFIT. Second thing I know, there is a guy with my wig, beard and cape on. It’s funny, but I have to keep a close eye on it – I don’t want to get this stuff stolen. They seem friendly enough and we take some happy snaps. They can’t dance though, which was a shame.

He put on my white outfit without asking - it suits him though

Here’s an extra video of a raver at the Sublime room:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Arrivederci
C and friend want to leave at 2am, primarily of the bizarre music that was now playing, but Gandalf convinces them to stay another hour, and we leave 3am.

Recommendation

First half rnb was good. Everyone is in the party mood. However only the main room was open at this time for the rnb lovers. Still was a good atmosphere.

I Love Uni @ Home Nightclub (upto midnight) – 7.5/10

Second half is where the sublime / Oh My! crowd came in.. mixed feelings – all rooms were opened up and the choice of music you want to dance to was wide open, but the crowd just wasn’t there. There were not enough people to fill all rooms up. It was busy, but not like you would expect on an old ‘Famous’ Saturday night when it was truly at capacity. If the ‘I Love Uni’ was not on earlier – I am pretty sure the place would have been pretty dead. The trance room was a sad sight – I wish more people were into it – however the people inside were friendly and just danced away.

Oh My / Sublime @ Home Nightclub Sydney – 5/10