A lot has been written about Antwerp nightlife, we even did a piece on it in our current !
Antwerp doesn't have that many places where you can go and are guaranteed a good time. Sure we have , , , , ,.. but a lot of interesting parties and concept are created by individuals, who do it out of love and feel there is something missing in Antwerp. You never know where these parties are going to be so you really have to follow them on Facebook if you want to be in the know!
I wanted to talk about D O N D E R B A R for a minute. My friend and I have organized (one band, 2 dj's, always on Thurday) for over a year and a half. We've always felt there weren't enough places for young bands to play in the heart of the city and for people to go out and just have a good time for free ( we kinda "borrowed" the concept of Charlatan in Ghent).
We started at and got to stay there for about 4 months. We were very ambitious and booked a band and dj's every week until we had to leave due to noise complaints. This was the beginning of a long journey to find a new space to continue this project. Every bar we contacted backed out because they were afraid of the noise complaints so we tried to do it all ourselfs. We first went to for 2 editions (epic show by btw) but although we had a great time, we felt we wanted to stay true to our initial concept which was to bring live music back into the heart of the city.
So we moved again, this time to . This was by far the best location but we had to make some compromises (like asking for money at the door) so after 3 editions we decided to move again. We then got to host 3 editions at pop up club but were shut down after -again- noise complaints after the first one so we quickly searched for another location and ended up at .
We thought long and hard about what to do with D O N D E R B A R since it was so hard to find a location where we could stay and felt it was slowly becoming more of a party than a concert with a couple of dj's playing afterwards. We decided to try again and see if we could make it work at . This was the first place where we could get dates on a regular base but after 3 editions we decides to call it quits forever.
Because the balance was off. At Bar Nadar, some people would come to watch the band, some to drink and chitchat and some came to dance. These last few editions people only came to dance, which is fine of course, but it sucks if the band has to play for 10 people and everybody is just wishing they would stop so that they can start to dance. We never aspired to be a party concept (because there are already so many good ones) but we had a lot of fun while it lasted and we are very thankful to everyone who supported us. The concept always was very go with the flow; we invited people to come and dj who'd never done it before, we've had some trouble with sounds, some bands were great, some were ok but we never had trouble with the crowd (exept for one time, previous edition) and that to us is amazing. Just people wanting to have a good time together. So thank you!
Last night we celebrated the end of D O N D E R B A R (at MOFO) and it was great! Full house (pics below : Nice-T & Feis-T, Makaktraxxx and Pretbederf). You can follow us at ; we are working on some new projects
As I mentioned (above) there are a lot of great concepts in Antwerp, so here's a list a people/parties you might want to follow on facebook:
, , , , , , , , , , and ofcourse
Text by Margot.
Pictures by Margot.