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yeah the lineup was chaos. Just complete and utter chaos, I showed up 15 mins after the club opened and had hardly moved or at least hadn't moved more than 15 feet in line in 3 hours or so. Worse yet, those fucking people in the kitchen who were peeling onions making the whole lineup smell terrible was a pleasure to deal with as well. Oh, and all the people 'who knew, or thought they knew people who could get them in' all clustered at the front of both lines was a nice touch too. Hell, if they'd not been there they might have let other people in at some point.
So yeah, the lineup was a trainwreck, and very, very poorly managed. As I often yelled out in line; that lines and the management of lines is a skill I think we all mastered in the kindergarten years, and the excuse of 'it's opening night and we're doing the best we can' just didn't fly for me. You let some sketchbag in, he/she pays, he/she gets searched, you let the next sketchbag in. It's NOT HARD PEOPLE.
The only redeeming quality I could think of about the whole fiasco with the lineup was the simple fact the club was decent enough to let those with tickets in first, instead of trying to squeeze a little more cash out of the night by turning away clubbers who'd payed in advance. However, for those on guestlist, this created a huge problem, as if you had guestlist, you hadn't paid for your ticket yet, and were stuck in the 'non' line. AKA the ticketless non moving line.
Anyway, come 3:30am, after jon and hilary had left I'd decided to call it a night, and I was already walking past the club northbound on Spadina, when Tara grabbed me on her way to get Graham, and essentially got us in. To her, Thank you thank you thank you thank you, and thank you again. You turned my night from a smouldering fire of rage into a decent clubbing experience with that one move.
And you'd think the line ends there, but no, the lineup up the stairs was not only just as poorly managed, but actually quite dangerous. people were a little pissed but the time they got into the general area with coatcheck and the ticket buying line, and as a result all mashed up right against the front. But what's worse, is the they were all lined up down the stairsfor about 8 rows of people. Now with all of these people who were standing in the bubble line thinking they knows someone, being agitated, it was quite often that someone would walk up the stairs trying to get by with lame lines such as 'excuse me, I work here, I need to get by' holding their tickets in their hands. Some people were let by, others not, creating near shoving matches at times, and couple that with the people packed in lining up on the stairs and it could have been a catastrophy. I myself had almost taken a tumble downward at least twice in those 15 minutes, and I can only imagine what a sketchbag would have done with their lack of balance. Anyway, I suppose all this bad behaviour and attitude is to be expected when a line is so long that your drugs wear off before you get into the club.
I got in the club at just after 3:30, to find the dancefloor still filling in. Mr. Knuckles is playing well, but you can tell he's not pushing the system too hard, he's leaving that job for Morales after him. Frankie was playing a lot of heavy hard basslines with oldschool vocals, and soulful overtones on a lot of his tracks, showing why he is, and will always be one of the most unique house DJs in the world. A lot of energy, and lot of good music, and a lot of fun.
6am rolls around, and Mr. Morales gets behind the decks. He looks fucked up. He starts playing, and playing well, but you can tell by his first 1/2 hour or so, he's just testing his brand new toy an wants to see what it's capable of. Often times cutting levels in the tracks to find out the setup's frequency responses, boosting levels to find the maximums, and overall having fun with what he's doing. He looked to be enjoying his new toy, and playing some killer beats while doing it. Steve's quote of the night to me was something along the lines of 'Well it looks like David has found the on switch to his new system', and that really was the case. And like I kept saying to everyone even before tonight, 'you haven't seen Morales, until you've seen him at Stereo' [or on his own system], and I think my point was exhonourated last night.
As for the sound itself, it was far, far better than thursday night, and the damn thing has A LOT of power behind it. In fact, I couldn't sit on the speakers, nor lean up against the wall, or even sit on the ground because the vibrations it caused made me fear that my testicles were going to sramble themselves to liquid if I sat down for more than 2 or three minutes. The bass on the system is better than that of the old Boa, a lot of punch, and has a hint of Stereo's 'warm' analog bass, but it's high frequencies need a lot of work. It was impossible to tell all this from Frankie's set, but when Morales really started putting his toy thru the paces, the kinks in the system were definitely noticable. Granted, this was the first time the club had an absolutely filled dancefloor, so tonight was yet another night for study by the sound engineers, and I'm confident that in the coming weeks this place will have impressive sound coming thru it's speakers.
As for Morales' set, he played dark and dirty for the first good hour and a half, with a lot of tribal tracks thrown in for good measure. Come 7:30, things started getting a little 'diva' for me and I took a little break. This is when I realized that sitting down would likely mean the end of my future children, and was forced to take breaks standing up. David went back to dark and dirty a little while after 8am, this time with some more techhy influences, and kept playing until, well I don't know when, as I left the club at about 10:30, and the dancefloor was still very much full. It was just this night showed me how 'out of clubbing shape' I really am, and how the 9-5 schedule has made my sleep patterns so regimented for the first time in a number of years. But that suspension under the dancefloor makes a huge difference, and I'm glad they added that 'a la Stereo', as my joints and back are all feeling dandy right now.
Oh, and as for people complaining about the crowd, I really enjoyed the crowd. Sure, the dancefloor was boys-town, but there were many good looking women all scattered around the edges, and the dudes were all pretty cool, and had no issues with any of them. And besides, if you go see Morales, you have to expect a large gay contingent. But really, why should it matter anyway? They're entitled to their party the same way the rest of are.
Anyway, so in summery; the organization was bullshit, the sound system has a ton of potential, the crowd was approprite, good and up for it, the club looks spectacular, and the actuall clubbing experience itself was really fun once you got in.
So please, all the members of the Sonic family, do something about these major problems you had last night. It's a club with really great potential, and something I really want to love as my home, but it still needs a little more work to bring it up to that 'next level' status you were all hyping it as.
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Not Everyone Understands House Music, It's a Spiritual Thing, a Body Thing, a Soul Thing
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. good thing i came after 6.. i think.. thats when the music changed.. wooo... i liked it.. (no more jessie song plz)
