New Brisbane

Last weekend was really big, I was at The Family Nightclub on Friday night, listening to the great sounds of DJ Tydi till around 2:30am. If you’ve ever been to The Family on a friday night, you would have most probably heard him play. As far as my opinion goes, I think he is one of Australia’s best DJs as he leaves the rest of them leaps and bounds behind. If you want more information, check out his website and listen to his song is it cold. It is fantastic. You can also do him a favour by voting him as the number 1 DJ in Australia! You can do that here.

Anyway, after that well deserved plug lets get on with it. So that was Friday night, I woke up on Saturday afternoon around 1pm thinking to myself, damn that was a good night, it really doesn’t get better than that. I have gone on and on about how The Family Nightclub is the only true nightclub in all of Brisbane. The Monastery nightclub has gone through a few phases so far, the owners also own Uber in West End and while I am not really a fan of Uber, the redecorations at Monastery were worth seeing. Recently the kind people at Monastery had invited us to go along to the grand opening of Monastery’s Sunday Night (gay night).

The Monastery Nightclub Fortitude Valley
621 Ann Street Fortitude Valley
Phone : 3257-7081

So I went along with a friend of mine and we had a great deal of fun, nevertheless, we are not gay (not that there is anything wrong with that), but having seen the new Monastery Nightclub, I was determined to go back and check out the venue on Saturday night when I wasn’t being checked out by gay guys (again, not that there is anything wrong with that…) And so, last Saturday we made our way to The Monastery nightclub. We got there around 11pm while the line wasn’t too bad, thankfully we had VIP passes to get in so that wasn’t much of an issue, however, I have to admit that the Sunday before when we went to Monastery, the bouncers were awfully unfriendly (even though we had VIP passes then too!). But bouncers are just bouncers.

If you haven’t gone to Monastery for a while you’ll be pleasantly surprised, although the redecorations don’t make the place look like its brand new, the Monastery now actually looks like a Monastery. They have also moved the DJ set and the dance floor to the far end of the nightclub giving you more room to dance and also clearing up the bar area for those who just want to get a drink. Smart.

So what I am really doing is avoiding the ultimate question, is the Monastery a real nightclub? Yes! I am happy to say it, despite perhaps going against what I have said in the past, Brisbanites, we have a real alternative to The Family Nightclub now. The Monastery might not be as big, it might not be as loud, and it might not have the likes of DJ Tydi playing (though they do have some awesome DJs) and yes they might not get big acts like Gods Kitchen, but heck, sometimes, there can really be too much of The Family.

Spending some 4hrs at The Monastery on Saturday night, I realized one thing, a nightclub needs only some basic essentials to make me happy:

1. Excellent Music
2. Dance floor with some space
3. Quick bar service

And you know what, this Saturday coming up, if I was going out and I had a choice between Family and Monastery, I wouldn’t even hesitate to pick the Monastery. Why is that you ask? Well for a start Tydi is not playing at Family, so that alone leaves me with comparing the two clubs by themselves. The DJ that was playing on Saturday night at the Monastery was just fantastic. He played everything from Ministry of Sound Sessions 3 to a remix of sound of violence by cassius and much much more. The mixes were great, the timings were even better and he really worked the crowd.

The new Dance Floor inside the Monastery is no where as big as the one inside The Family (basement), nonetheless, there aren’t that many people who want to dance at Monastery and that leaves people like me with the opportunity to actually have some space to dance around. I’ll give the Monastery some credit for having a well laid out dance floor that doesn’t interfere with the bar and no one needs to walk through you to get somewhere. However I can anticipate a great deal of problems if the Monastery got really busy with people who want to dance as there just isn’t enough space. The service at Monastery was great, prices were below average ($7.5 for a Smirnoff black might sound expensive, but try $9 for most other places in the valley) and the bar staff were polite and quick. I had no issues there.

Okay so I couldn’t have gone to a place and not found any faults, that wouldn’t be me. So yes, I found one big, steaming, sweaty problem. It’s bloody hot in there! Saturday night was pretty cold around the Valley, but when you walked inside The Monastery you could seriously feel a 5-10 degree change in temperature. Now thats not too bad if your just sitting around having a few drinks but God help you if you want to dance! I guess that explains why not that many people are actually dancing because a mere 20 mins of dancing means you’ll be covered in sweat! But hey, you’re having a good time right?

I am not sure if the temperature on the night was due to an Air Con problem or if its just normal? If it is normal then yes, I can see the problem come summer as that place is going to be boiling. Now you might be thinking “hey thats not fair, that also happens at family” well, no.. it doesn’t, only on nights when big acts are playing and the family is filled with 2000 people that you get that sort of temperature, on a normal night the Family’s Air Con system does a great job of keeping the dance floor (and the rest of the club) at a very comfortable temperature.

But thats it! Thats all I could find wrong with the Monastery, I could be a grandma and say the music was too loud (I still have ringing in my ears) but that might have been because I was dancing next to the speaker and anyway it would get me lots of hate mail!

I tell you what, The Monastery are having their official re-opening night on the 4th of August, its going to be huge, and I am going to be there. Yes its a friday and yes that means I’ll miss Tydi playing at Family but thats how good the Monastery really is! Its actually worth spending $10 on! If only Uber would stop charging me $10 for an orange juice and play similar music, I might even like that too! Be at the Monastery on the 4th of August!