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| quote: | Originally posted by alec
Kate, I disagree, I feel the Ottawa scene died, and is currently undergoing its rebirth process |
Despite how it may come across at times.. I’m not one of those jaded clubbers who only talks about how ‘it was so much better back in da day’… but there are a few comments I’ll make about the evolution of the Ottawa ‘scene’ (I hate referring to it like that btw, but you get my point).
There will be people in Ottawa that will say the beginning of the club nights as we know it really started to come into swing back when Max Graham was playing @ Sweet (before Atomic). I certainly wasn’t a regular patron at that time though. Atomic opened shortly after Sona did in Montreal back in 96 or 97, I vividly remember that the vibe was awesome and the place was very welcoming.. I don’t want to suggest that the drugs and the vibe go hand in hand.. but in all honesty that was a time when there was a lot of experimentation for people, mostly E, and Atomic became a big gateway to introduce a big generation of ottawa clubbers to EDM. There was also Illusions (and the 6 locations they had over the years.. countless closures etc) but that place was and will forever be a big Hells Angel’s sketchpad.. so that’s all I will say about that place. The Well was cool too though (RIP).. Carl Cox and Misstress Barbara and countless others managed to play there many years ago too.
So many great shows there over the years (atomic) but in the last few years it was around it went downhill just like Sona... the owners were losing money and the bookings were less frequent. When the announcement finally came that it was shutting down for good a lot of people were affected by this one way or the other; either because it was the place that ‘introduced’ them to the ‘scene’ or because Ottawa was losing probably the best club it had, so options were limited. I remember the last few weekends the club was open (2001?) the place was rammed (especially the last night.. yowza!!) and the question on everyone’s minds was.. “what now!?”
I got the first flyer for what became Surface and although I was going to Montreal more at this stage anyway, I thought that after a bit of time the promoters would be able to bring back what was lost when Atomic closed.. in my opinion, this has NOT happened….and probably never will. It was a different time then.. just like Circus and Aria will never really capture the feeling of the first few years at Sona (to no fault of their own really, just a reality).
I give credit to Joe Juarez and his crew for stepping in when no one else did to try to bring back the names, and they did have some decent bookings over the years, but I never felt comfortable at Surface and thought the best use of the space is when it was ‘The Show’. 
The best ‘evolution’ of the ottawa scene though has been that there are several promoters now capable of throwing large parties at any given time. Neil, Balu, Raf, Nick, Paulo, the Kapacity crew..just to name a few.. and you wanna know what.. many of them were the regular faces at Atomic.. back in da day. 
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