by Veeral Sheth

With celebrity sightings and spectacular sound, the opening weekend of Sound-Bar Chicago lived up to the hype. The club opening had been shelved for over a year, but many agree that it was worth the wait. With its opening, a new type of music experience has begun in the city.

Before the club had officially opened its doors on Thursday, a line had formed down the block with eager patrons awaiting the first glimpses of the new club. They were greeted with an opulence rarely seen in the Midwest.

It was apparent that every detail – from the velvety walls to the LCD monitors above the urinals – had been well mused during the planning and design of the new scene. Friday night proved that word of the club opening had spread, as more revelers poured into the club to enjoy Chicago’s new place to see and be seen. This brings us to Saturday night.

Our growing CoolJunkie Chicago crew arrives at the club at 10:00 pm where we are greeted by a modest line (about 20 people deep) and plenty of Sound-Bar staff. While cover is expected to be $20, the Sound-Bar staff surprises the crowd by reducing the charge to $10 before 11:00pm.

Once we’re inside, we immediately begin to get a feel for the club. As we pass the well-placed coat check and the first set of bathrooms, we notice a tangerine glow. This is the first of the color-coded bars we will encounter throughout the night. As a tighter, streamlined version of the bars in the rest of the club, this lobby bar offers a solace from the bright lights and thunderous music soon to be encountered as we enter the main room.

This blue themed dance floor flanked by glowing bars on both ends is without-a-doubt the heart and soul of Sound-Bar. With Chicago’s very first EAW loudspeaker system, the sound in this room is unparalleled.

With rich textured tunes, we are able to peel away each layer of music and enjoy electronic dance music the way it was meant to be heard. As we glance around, we see that Chris Tomasone (PURE) has grasped this concept as he stretches the system while partygoers file onto the dance floor.

In a forward thinking move by the Sound-Bar designers, the DJ booth has been placed between the VIP area and the main floor so that it appears and feels as though the DJ is amongst the dancers, at the center of the Sound-Bar universe.

Before midnight, the main room is packed; you get the feeling that no matter how large they would have built that dance floor, it was going to be too small considering the sheer numbers that will be visiting the club this summer. We leave the hot and throbbing mass of dancers and get a private tour of the rest of the club. The Round-Bar on the main level is a velvety-maroon themed area with the feel (and “members only access”) of a VIP lounge. The clientele here sips on $400 bottles of Bacardi, and if you are looking for what fashions are going to be hot this summer, this may be the place that sets the trends.
As we move to the lower level, we are taken to the ultra exclusive Green Room where we cross paths with Nicolas Cage (in town filming The Weather Man). We watch his entourage exit through the “back door” equipped with its own private elevator, which we learn later goes directly to a street exit where Mr. Cage’s car awaits. Needless to say, this room is the most private and pricey of the bunch but will likely entertain countless Hollywood-types in the near future.
The remainder of the lower level is divided into three areas. There is the Red Room which has booths and couches for the weary and turns into a VIP area sometime after midnight. This room’s fraternal twin, the Orange Room, sits at the opposite end of the building and has a similar function and feel. Each of these rooms is loaded with Sound-Bar staff and bartenders, and each room has specialized drink menus that compliment the well-stocked bars where mixed drinks average $6-8. The two rooms are separated by the DJ booth where Jernell Geronimo spins some old school hip-hop for the dance floor in front of him. While the sound system on this level serves its purpose, it cannot match the beast on the main floor. The one criticism that the lower level receives is that the Sound-Bar team can only keep the floor open until 2:00am (due to liquor license restrictions) at which point people must go back to the main level (or leave the club). One staff member mentioned that they were trying to resolve this issue and will hopefully have something worked out soon.
In the end, Sound-Bar opened with an ear-tweaking, eye-popping weekend. Chicagoans were introduced to a more sophisticated and state-of-the-art clubbing experience, and it looks like the Sound-Bar team will continue to bring in the talent. With headliners like Sander Kleinenberg, Seb Fontaine, and Laurent Garnier making their way to the club in the following weeks and the PURE crew hitting the decks on Saturdays, it’s a safe bet that audiophiles will be lining up on Franklin all summer long.