Vancouver's old A&B Sound store is reborn as the city’s most exotic late-night spot
Five Sixty Club
560 Seymour Street
Friday from 9 p.m.
VANCOUVER -- Vancouver nightclubs tend to be one-trick ponies. One space, one DJ, one theme running throughout. Vincent Alvaro thinks this is a bit boring. So he wants to shake things up with his new club, Five Sixty. Located in the old A&B Sound store at 560 Seymour, it’s much larger than most local nightclubs – 28,000 sq. ft. spread over four floors. The size means it can have several different themes within the overall space. When it’s going full-tilt, 500 patrons will be able to walk around and choose between three separate mini-clubs, each with its own DJ. But Alvaro sees it as more than just a hopping late-night space. He wants Five Sixty to be a cultural hub, a place where creative people will meet and mingle. “We’re focusing on the arts community as patrons,” he explains. “People involved in film, fashion, music, the visual arts, design, that type of thing.”
One of the ways he plans to attract the art crowd is by showing original art. Video art will be shown in the main dance space; a mezzanine will have a photo gallery. A painting by Attila Richard Lukacs is behind the bar in a lounge. “There were many New York bars like this in the early 80s,” said Alvaro. “Area, Palladium, Danceteria, Limelight. They all commissioned artists to do visuals in many of the rooms. They had constantly changing exhibits, performance art, that type of thing. We’re basically doing the same thing.” Alvaro even plans to give the top floor to two art galleries (Presentation House in North Van and the Belkin Gallery at UBC) to operate as downtown satellite galleries.
“He’s one of a kind,” said Reid Shier of Presentation House, which is looking for funding to operate the downtown wing. “There’s not too many guys like that left. He’s got something more than just making money in mind. He wants to create a real active space down there. It’s more than making a club scene, it’s making something that a lot of different people are going to come to. I think that’s kind of rare.” To some people the concept may seem a bit pie-in-the-sky, but Alvaro has done this before. In the mid-1980s, he opened Graceland, a 30,000 sq. ft. nightclub in the old Mortifee-Munshaw photo-finishing factory in Yaletown. Graceland’s entrance was in the loading dock in the back lane, which gave it the air of something exotic, a private club or speakeasy. It showed original art (in the Lisa Marie room), and it interspersed dance music and DJs with live gigs by the likes of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Butthole Surfers. Alvaro sold Graceland in 1990 and moved to New York, where he was involved in the art business. Five years ago he got the itch to do another club in Vancouver, and looked around for a space. It took awhile, but he found it at the old A&B, which is actually two buildings and 75 feet wide. The license for the new club came from Richard’s on Richards, which was recently knocked down for a condo development.
It took a year and $4 million to convert the building from retail to a nightclub, but the end result is quite something. The main space is located where A&B used to sell CDs and records. It’s a large open room, with a stage, two bars and no chairs or tables – it’s basically one big dance floor. If you want to sit and watch the action, there’s a mezzanine up where A&B used to sell high-end stereos. The mezzanine railing is clear plexiglass, so that you have an unimpeded view when you’re relaxing on the room’s assortment of plush club chair-style couches. The most startling space is the basement, which is vast – 6,000 sq. ft., with 11 foot ceilings. Alvaro decided to turn it into a unisex bathroom with its own bar, DJ and dance floor. It’s quite a bathroom. Each stall features beautiful tile work, all with a different design. There are even speakers in the stalls, so you don’t have to miss the action when you’re taking a timeout. “It’ll be loud,” he promises. “This is a party area. People will be partying in the bathroom.” If you’d rather chill, there is a long, thin lounge on the main floor just off the main dance room. The two rooms are separated by a corridor where up to 200 people can line up indoors, a nice touch in a rainy city.
A lot of thought and detail has gone into Five Sixty. A window from the corridor into the lounge features lace embedded in glass, a very cool effect. “It was hand-made for us in New York and sent out here,” he said. “You can look into the lounge while you come into the building.” The lounge bar features a white marble countertop over a cement base. The furniture in the lounge is chic, contemporary and white, while the chandeliers are bordello red, which makes for a nice contrast. For late night snacks a kitchen at the back will be offering “gourmet” pizza and appetizers. The dance floor in the main space is oak, and a curved wall in the entrance corridor is glass tile. But the fine finishing is mixed with raw concrete, an unusual blend of elegant and industrial.
It’s quite unlike the Granville street clubs, which is what Alvaro wanted.
“All those clubs on Granville cater to the same group,” he said. “They all look the same inside. They have the same lighting, the same waitresses, the same music, the same décor. They might as well be one club.
“Our clientele are more sophisticated, they want something a lot nicer than that. For people [who are] a little bit more sophisticated, there’s nowhere really to go in Vancouver, other than lounges in hotels. And they meet at art openings.” The club will change throughout the week, depending on what’s happening. Friday and Saturday it will be a dance club, the rest of the week it will book live shows, picking up where Richard’s on Richards left off. DJ Honey Dijon (“one of the hottest DJs in New York”) will open Five Sixty this Saturday. The cocktail lounge will open at 5 in the afternoon, and can operate as a separate facility or as one big club with the dance space. “We will try and nurture the business crowd in this area, as well as the high end retail crowd,” he said. “It has its own entrance, it’s basically self-contained. It could operate on its own.” The main dance space should be pretty wild. Alvaro plans to screen videos by artists like Paul Wong beside the dance floor. “We have floor-to-ceiling projections on the wall and behind the stage,” he said. “We’re bringing in a lot of video artists to do installations in this room. It will really truly be a visual feast of imagery in this room, not just the common dance floor lights you see in all those other places.” Most local bar owners would never show video art on the dance floor in a million years. But Alvaro thinks people will love it. “It’s a great environment to experience art, in a nightclub,” he said. “You have the time to sit back and enjoy it, and really look at it.”
He’s bet $4 million on it.
Upcoming live acts
Honey Dijon: Saturday
We Are the City: April 10
John Brown’s Body: April 15
Sherry Vine & Joey Arias: mid-April
Lady Bunny: May 10
Vampire Weekend: May 27
Mumford & Sons: May 30
Lady Kier: late May
Psychedelic Furs: June 18
The Wigs: June 22
Hank Williams III: June 29
Nina Hagen: July
Ru Paul: August
[email protected]
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http://www.vancouversun.com/entertainmen...xotic+late+night+spot/2721803/story.html
pretty interesting, I thought. have to check it out when school's out.
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