Bar 32
Editorial
Ask any touring, slightly mournful band and they'll tell you, Canberra is a town with a passion for alternative sounds that belies its size. For years, they city has supported at least one permanent venue to accommodate rock'n'roll aesthetes. Presently, it's the turn of Bar 32.
While Arcade Fire may be playing for coy boys and girls who know the work of Lester Bangs by heart, this club doesn't look exactly like it belongs in New York's Lower East Side. CBGB's it isn't. A vast barn that once echoed with the sound of Top 40 it is.
That the proprietors have not gone out of their way to decorate a nightclub patronised by kids with hair from a Strokes album cover seems to trouble no one at all. Locals are simply grateful for respite from Rhianna.
Despite the school hall ambience of the room and the sweet reticence of shy indie kids, this is a friendly place. If you're young, a little snobby and particular about what ends up on your iPod, you'll fit right in.
One visits Bar 32 to shoe-gaze; drinking is not this place's raison d'être. However, there is basic drinking to be done and from 9pm until 11pm each weekend night, you'll pay rock bottom prices for your rock'n'roll medicine.
SM King, April 2010
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