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Beta: Waterloo, An In Depth Review
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| wikus |
Beta
The second letter of the original alphabet. A clever name. In fact an amazing name given the history of the Greeks and the letters modern usage as a word.
My ears have been flooded with praise and glory about the awesomeness that is apparently a small trance club in the Tri-City. Since I can remember, Waterloo has been a breeding ground of awful top 40 clubs and bars and the 60,000 current students who live in the area that give more praise to this generic mind numbing genre of music as those who have praised Beta in the last 6 months, and thats including the 11,000+ Facebook fans. At last… a club which caters solely to those with a grasp on electronic dance music.
Or so I thought…
Marcus Schossow was my introduction to this mega-hyped (not mega acclaimed) club. So here's the good, the bad, and the ugly. For starts, the lineup was divided into men and women (or boy and girls realistically, I shall explain later) to which the mens lineup moved far more quickly than the womens. A first for me to see a divide being genders. Why? I found myself to be on the guest list and paid no cover to enter. This is something I should give praise to Beta, as each club I've ever experienced with being on a 'guest list' had always been a marketing gimmick and the neanderthal blondes working the guest list with a clipboard seemed to be more focused on looking pretty than having a clue about what a guest list is and why I made an effort to sign up for one online days prior to joining it. Upon entrance we waited in front the ticket booth to receive tickets for my entire group of friends. A 5 minute wait. After, a 10-15 minute wait to put away my jacket at coat check for $4.00.
Now the bad.
Marcus Schossow. I expected much better. In fact, Kurtbradd did a finer job of proper 'trance' selections. I couldn't believe what Schossow's first track of the night was. So unexpected I won't even bother mentioning. In any case, I was taken back after hearing all the good reviews about his trance style and his fiasco with Deadrat6, i mean Deadmau5. Unfortunately, a lot of the stuff I heard was cheese, and that remix of Barbers Adagio for strings was quite rank. A few top notch tracks I did hear, but not enough for a 3 hour set. There was also a very evident lack of speakers in the back of the club by coat check, as I could easily have a solid conversation with some friends. I'm a big fan of a loud atmosphere. Perhaps this has to do with the city forcing Beta to turn down their volume?
Now the ugly. And this is where it all trumps the rest.
The crowd. Never have I felt more of a pedophile in my life as I have during this exhibition of prepubescent kids running rampant at a dance club supposedly for the dance culture. At no point in time did I have any faith in the crowd at being anything more than just an oversized elementary school classroom. I used to complain about the governments hordes of 40 year old asians standing around like the living dead not knowing what they're doing there, or the young packs of chinese girls doing their typical tokyo pose (peace sign) and giggling for 4 hours straight taking pictures as opposed to, you know, dancing or listening. To be honest, I would have even preferred Guvernments lack of air condition and be standing shoulder to shoulder like a sardine next to some sweaty jungle hair infested fatass than be exposed to the immature underage posers at Beta. I went into a dance only to land on the planets greatest all ages club. It was the constant running back and forth of these kids, not a ing clue wether they wanted to pick a spot to stand in and do their club thing or walk and run around the club like its their first elementary school dance. But this is where it got interesting, you could tell these kids were one step ahead of elementary school dances as every single bit of the clubs area where there was a counter was used as leverage for the guys to grind up with the girls in no lesser fashion than jamaican daggering. The first couple people I noticed doing this excessive aberrant behaviour I didn't bother, but when the entire bar looked like guys were running a train on these jailbait pieces of ass and could be seen into the distance from one end of the club to the other, this is where I had to ask myself if I was at Beta or some random top 40 hole in Toronto on Richmond St.
I'm not finished though.
Apart from all this excessive running around and pushing and shoving by the crowd, I've never been more tempted to knock the out of someone at a club. It was a safe bet that every 30-90 seconds someone had to mash their way through you. I thought Guvernment was bad, but this experience was particularly annoying. The only upside to this entire dreadful approach to being at a dance club was that with each person pushing against me each time they wanted to pass through for the 8th time, I was able to cop a feel of some girls . Although, this again is tarnished by the fact they almost all of them are 19 and under, so feeling like Hank Moody from Californication isn't exactly rewarding, but it certainly does polish a turd. With each child in the club, I noticed a very unhealthy trend amongst all of them. A certain 'look' to them was present. I suppose it could be the Wilfrid Laurier university campus look. All of these kids look as if they were rolled off a factory line and slapped on with more or less the same stupid fashion sense. For those of you who don't know about WLU's campus look, it consists of; ugh shoes, t&a yoga pants, hollister or A&F sweater, platinum blonde hair, white lips and the mandatory aviator glasses. For the guys, more or less the same.
Having said that… the amount of stupid glasses in a dark room one was able to see was astonishing, truly the sign of prepubescent children;
Glasses with hearts:
Glasses without lenses:
Glasses with only one lens:
And everyone in glasses:
I'm all for freedom of expression via clothing. But is there some kind of unwritten required dress code by the managers of Beta to be in this style? And then came the glowsticks…….! This is where the children became especially obnoxious. There were so many of these kids forcing everyone to clear a path for them to take up about 5x5 metres of space so they could do a ridiculous jungle dance mixed with some very amateur attempts at breakdancing. Unfortunately this happened right in front of me and my friends and the behaviour of these twats was so intrusive that only after 30 minutes my friends had enough of it.
But there was again another fundamental reason for the quick leave of my friends and my very fast disliking for this experience…
Alcohol. Or the lack of it. Why? The club has been in business since november and it is now April, and there is still NO alcohol. Its no surprise why the club caters mainly to all ages with the absence of alcohol. However, after this many months of operation there would be at least some transparency with the club owner as to the REAL reason why Beta does not have a liquor license instead of bullting their way around it (this is where I'll be harsh as theres no excuse). I've been following Beta's statuses on Facebook and most seem to ignore its fanbase over concrete action to the liquor license. So this is what I've gathered from the whole alcohol debacle: the city of Waterloo is not thrilled with Beta's existence in the uptown core and has not given them a license as there are enough establishments that serve alcohol. True enough, the last thing Beta needs to do is bring more heat on the uptown core during its weekend nightlife. The problem is, even without alcohol the police is HOUNDING Beta several times a night, I think their record is 10 visits in a single night. So naturally, there will be a drug problem with the club without a liquor license. The choices of beverage? An energy drink and water. So how does the club make money without ANY sales of alcohol as nearly every clubs main revenue stream is from the sales of it. Then again, Beta's owners have a very suspicious history as the last two clubs they owned both burned down (one in Kitchener and the other in London).
So, with all that said, the experience at Beta was very very disappointing. Its mostly the crowd that is a problem. Bring in an older crowd and not only will I among others be willing to pay 20+ dollars for cover but another 40+ for drinks. What Beta is doing now is only bringing down their potential success. In no way do I wish Beta to fail despite my unflattering review, take is a constructive criticism as I would be very happy to see Beta thrive as a dance club for the tri-city that brings in solid DJs with a *real* dance music crowd and of course alcohol. The venue itself is great, the lights are awesome, could use more lasers though along with better fog machines (not enough fog, nowhere near as the fog is released from the ceiling which is far too high).
For a club thats only been operating for roughly 6 months, it certainly has proved a lot of potential, but it needs a lot of work. I suspect once, if ever, the liquor license is implemented it will weed out the useless children that are there for no reason and Beta becomes a clubbers hotspot, not the top 40 cheese crowd. |
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| GGM |
You kind answer your own questions/criticisms.
No speakers in the back
-You say how can they manage to survive financially with no liquor? Just barely is the answer. Thus they don't have money to get rear speakers.
All the kids and immaturity
-You said it's there to serve the 60,000 university students who usually are in the 18-23 year old range. What did you expect?
Schossow's set
-You talk bout how it's generally a top 40 loving crowd in that area. You thought he'd play a hardcore trance set to appease their top 40 cheese tastes?
But the kicker for me was when you said you felt like a pedo then later on say how the only upside of the pushing through was to sneak a titty feel on some youngin. lol dude you felt like a pedo cause you are a pedo! |
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| hax-a-million |
| what club in london? |
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| Summerlover |
OK, half the stuff you talked about has NOTHING to do with Beta itself, but with life in general for people of this age group.
You're answer is simple. Don't go. :rolleyes:
As for the music, you're basing your experience on 1 single DJ. So stop bitching about the music in the club if you've only been once. Kurtbradd is a good warm-up DJ. Mr. Morton is someone I'd like to see more of at Beta (why hasn't he been there yet is beyond me). Also seeing more of Deko-ze would be a huge bonus! I find locals play better sets than the headliners half the time anyway. I showed up for Schossow halfway through the night, and I agree, he sucked, however this is not the club's fault. So please don't start downplaying the club because of the poor music the headliner drops. It's simply not fair, and the club doesn't deserve to be held accountable for it. However that beign said, I'll probably never go to a Schossow show again, regardless where it is. |
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| ChemEnhanced |
I don't think its the club you have a problem with as much as its the clientele. A bunch of kids at a club in a university town....seems the norm. Part of the problem is the kids think they need to act a certain way at a "rave"...which most of them think going to a "trance" party is. They dress up in their colourful gay clothing and put on stupid shades because lazers hurt eyes. I'm sure many of these kids are going to Revolution on a Friday or Saturday and are not dressed the same way. It will be interesting to see what kind of crowd they get in the summer...I'm sure it won't be as young.
It does seem funny that its taken so long to get the liquor licence. Like I've said before, there are rumors that an owner of several clubs/bars in the area is using connections to make Beta jump through all the hoops and is basically trying to put Beta into as much debt as possible. It wouldn't surprise me if its true.
I give Beta a lot of credit with the way they have handled things and they have been genius in their marketing approach. |
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| mickmack |
| Registered April 2011 - Did you join TA for the sole purpose of posting that review??? |
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| E2EK1EL |
| quote: | Originally posted by mickmack
Registered April 2011 - Did you join TA for the sole purpose of posting that review??? |
Profile For wikus
Date Registered: Today
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The answer is yes. |
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| darouge11 |
| theres nothing wrong with grabbing a 19 year old boob, if youre 25 :P |
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| Ferg |
| quote: | Originally posted by mickmack
Registered April 2011 - Did you join TA for the sole purpose of posting that review??? |
Who cares?
Beta doesn't sell alcohol. That's reason enough not to go. Of course its going to be full of kids. Most all ages clubs are.
:crazy: |
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| ChemEnhanced |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ferg
Who cares?
Beta doesn't sell alcohol. That's reason enough not to go. Of course its going to be full of kids. Most all ages clubs are.
:crazy: |
it wasn't meant to be an all ages club |
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| Ozmözis |
| So, what you're saying is that Glenn Morrison is an prepubescent child? |
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| Prometheus Xex |
| Is this a good time to post my Beta videos? LOL. |
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