Boa Redux - Saturday July 23, 2005

www.boa-redux.com

270 Spadina Avenue (now relocated to 360 Adelaide West)

I have just one thing to say - LOUD!!!! Boa's main room has an extremely loud beast of a sound system pumping out tribal and progressive house in all it's variations. Entry is strict and involves an acceptable level of patting down for drug, contraband and God knows what. Then one must pay at another flight of stairs, and then finally scale some more stairs to get to the main room, whereupon the thunderous assault on one's ears takes place. The place is basically a beautifully renovated theatre made for dancing, with a stage on the left and several levels of dance plateaus on the right. Hundreds, if not thousands of people can fit into the main room, because it extends back as far as the eye can see.

On the other side of the theatre layout there lies another downstairs room with chairs and tables and it's own DJ spinning soulful house with lyrics on the night we were there. What keeps Boa fresh is that although there are resident DJ's, there are also invited guest DJ's that spin there as well. The DJ on the ones and twos in the main room was one such guest DJ, his name being Sandy Rivera (Kings of Tomorrow, Defected). My three friends and I spent the night going between the two rooms and dancing to whatever came on.

Overall people are going to Boa to hear appealing music on a sound system that is only rivaled by System Sound Bar. Some people are also going to dance off their Ecstasy or similar drug haze, so we were very aware of the occasional stoned and off-balance humans maneuvering on the dance floor and throughout the club. In light of this, one can appreciate the no alcohol served rule at Boa. Not to worry water, power drinks, and Red Bull are all available at the bar for about three times what you would pay in a grocery store… heh, heh, heh.

Scale of 0-10 (10 being the best)
Music - 9 People - 7 Ambiance - 8 1/2 Love factor - 6