Tao Nightclub Sydney - Grand opening night : 2:30am / Bar Area
Just left a house party and I still want my dancing fix. Melly is at the Grand Opening of a new nightclub where the old Mandarin Club once stood. So here we go!
Satisfaction Saturdays @ Tao Nightclub
Assessment Time: 2:30am – 4:00am
Website: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=288588253950
Address: 396 Pitt St, CNR Goulburn St (Old Mandarin Club)
Dress Code / Door Policy: Advertised as “dress to impress”, but seemingly more relaxed about it at the door. Every guy inside though had a collared shirt, and the girls were all in dresses.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: Free for ladies before 11, $10 on birthday guestlist before midnight. $20 for all others.
Guestlist: See facebook page for details
Inside: Beneath the now Mr B’s Hotel, Tao Bar/Nightclub is a small area split into even smaller areas – A carpeted area where most dancing occurs. It holds 50-80 people. There are two lounge areas on either side of the dancefloor. A DJ is along the wall. The wooden floor area is the general ‘lets stand around and chat each other up’ area with bar and some tables and stools. This particular area has a green and red spotted light thing dotting the area. It’s trippy.
Cloak Room: $5 per item.
Bar: $19 for 2 carlton draughts and a pure blonde. $16 jugs of beer before midnight
DJs: Xcentrik, R*One, Normz, Edo, Day-Day
Music: RnB most of the night, with the occasional commercial house song thrown in. If you have never been to an RnB asian club.. usually the RNB songs each get about 30 to 60 seconds of airplay before being mixed to another song, so its an anthology of choruses.. its sad if you want to hear the whole song, but with this format, it keeps the crowd going.. and going.
Crowd: Asian, the clean classy types. Not many teeny boppers. If there were any, they were cleverly disguised.
Entertainment: No extra entertainment besdies the MC. There was air conditioning though
Atmosphere: Small atmosphere, but a classy crowd with a “clean” venue keeps it viable to stay inside. By clean, I mean they have air conditioning in the standing area. However on the dancefloor there isn’t much air con and it may get a little stuffy.. but only a little as its not too packed when we got inside.
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3am in Havana Asian RnB night.
A new promoter has taken over Havana for two weeks only. Last week was packed out, and tonight was week two. I somehow got stuck at Haymarket Hotel, but eventually worked my way to Havana, albeit late at 2:30am, so here we go!
Katsuyaku Girls @ Havana Club de Luxe
Assessment Time: 2:30am – 4:00am
Website: http://www.havanaclub.com.au
Address: 169 Oxford St, Darlinghurst, Sydney
Dress Code / Door Policy: Casual ok. I was wearing a top hat, collared shirt, jeans and dress shoes, which had no complaints upon entry. Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25 full price after midnight. They’ve upped it and it hurts my wallet.
Guestlist: Check facebook page.
Inside: One main danceflor for about 200 or so people. Both sides are lounge and booth areas. DJ at the front, and a bar on each other side – Enough to keep one happy
Cloak Room: $4 Bar: Didn’t drink tonight Music: At point of arrival (2.30am) it was some rnb, hip hop and house all mixed up.
Crowd: Asian with a few euros and islanders as well. It’s a little mixed.
Entertainment: Two dancing poles. Earlier in the night the Katsujuku girls were dancing the poles to the amazement of the crowd. There is also an MC tonight to keep the night going.
Atmosphere: Enough people and barely enough women to keep wanting to dance. I was surprised at the number of people left at this time.
Video
(I caught it during the house segment. Look at the crowd go!)
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We finished a wedding out west. I am in my tuxedo and I feel awesome. I was also smashed. The city was 1 hour away. I didn’t care. I was in a tux – We were going clubbing!! Luckily I had some friends at Home Nightclub…
About Home Nightclub:
Location: Cockle Bay wharf, Darling Habour
Website: http://www.homesydney.com
Inside: All rooms except the mid-wall room was open. Main room on the floor, with upstairs balcony area and 2nd bar. Outdoor smoking area connected to this. A 2nd smaller room on the 2nd level. 3rd level are 2 extra rooms. This place is a maze of rooms.
About Homemade Saturdays:
Assessment Time: 1.30am-3.30am
Dress Code: Casual ok. I was wearing my tuxedo from the wedding. You also get fingerprinted and photo scanned on the way in.
Entry Fee / Cover Charge: $25
Guestlist: See website
Cloakroom: Yes, at the bar near at the DJ eng.
Bar: $12 yaberbombs.
Music: House in the main room. Can’t complain, all the commercial house tunes were being played. Actually it was executed quite well here. There was also a saxophone player to add another dimension to the music – much like the Bongo players at Bungalow and Cargo Bar.
Supporting saxaphone player used to great effect with the music
RNB room – RNB of course – but I wasn’t there long enough.
Party tunes and retro at the top level. They seemed to have combined all the rooms into one major huge event.
Crowd: Mixed – Asians, Euros
Atmosphere: Party and vibing in the main room. However the other rooms seemed pretty dead. Especially the RNB room as nobody was there – it was the most dead room of them all. There were a hundred other places where you could have your proper rnb fix – and Home Nightclub doesn’t seem to be popular right now as the place to be for it.
360 from the main podium
Timeline:
Kicked off the podium by the sexist DJ
There are girls up at the front dancing. Drunk old me wants a dance too! I went up and danced for a good 50 seconds. Then I hear a:
DJ: “OI!”
James: (turns around)
DJ: “GET OFF THE STAGE – NOW!!!”
James: (jumps off stage)
Man.. what a cold DJ. Given, he probably has a lot of drunk guys coming up onto his stage, but fuck you anyway Mr DJ, even if you played really good beats. A minute later I have my female friend go up and dance, and there was no objections. Total sexism!!!
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Last night in Goa! I dressed up in the traditional Indian attire and walked the 30 minutes to the club from my hotel. When I got to the counter, I realised I was 100 rupees short for entry, and had to walk back to the hotel to get more money. 90 minutes gone, but now I was back and got right in…
About Mambos Nightclub
Location: Tito’s Lane, Baga – Calangute Road, Goa, India.
Website: http://www.titos.in/mambo.htm
Inside: One central room with DJ and a bar. Pretty girls are allowed to go up a level to dance along the walls upon steel frames. an Outdoor patio-like area surrounds the main room with a bar for people to relax.
Music: Tonight was House
Crowd: Local Indians and tourists
Dress Code: Casual
Cover Charge / Entry Fee: 800 Indian rupees
Occurrence: Every night
Atmosphere: Relaxed, fun, open.
Timeline
Basically wearing this outfit automatically made me King Dingaling of the club. The security wanted photos with me, the bar staff wanted photos and let me inside their bar as well… as well as a whole heap of other people who wanted photos too.
Bouncers at Mambos asked for a photo with me
Kitchen staff let me in for a photo
Clare.. every 5 minutes reminding me she has a bf while grinding with me
No podium dancing allowed for men : Yeah how dodgy is that? There were girls dancing up, and they stepped down. I wanted to get up, but suddenly a security guard jumped in front of me and told me “Do You Want To Step Outside???” So wasn’t fair, they let these ugly girls dance, and yet I couldn’t… ? Where’s the justice?
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