The Vag's soft opening
Thanks to Duran, I was able to snag a pass to the The Soft Opening of the VAG. I always love it when the Vag has an opening thats soft making it much easier to penetrate. When I first made it close enough to smell the soft opening of the Vag, someone was in my way. I had to talk him in to letting me stick my head inside the Vag to get a closer look. The odor was the first thing i noticed about the Vag. A damp sweaty smell, infused with cigarettes and too much perfume. Not the smell I normally expect from the Vag, but strangely, the Smell of the Vag was not upsetting. I must say, the walls of the Vag is much larger than I remember it to be. It was not as tight as before and I was able to move freely about. Hundreds of people were in and out of the Vag, some in states of stupor, unable to comprehend how they ended up in a Vag this large... Ok, enough of that.
Less innuendo in extended...
The Vag(abond) played pretty much what i expected them to, nothing shocking or different about the house,electro and general party jams . It was a definite reinforcement of the demographic (me and you) the Vag is trying to snatch...hehe. The Sound in the Main room had a very pleasing and rare balance of having shakingly loud deep bass without hurting your ears from the high frequencies, while still hearing all the elements of the track. This was nice and more than what i can say about bigger sound systems (Namely Studio A, pawn shop, Laundry Bar...etc) that leave your ears in a bloody sensory overload. The sound in the back suffered the same loss of volume that I/O had to deal with, you could only hear the music clearly if you stood real close to the speakers, but overall not a bad aspect since you can actually hear yourself and hold a conversation in the back, which is always good.
After all the building up of the revamping of the I/O space there was still a lot of the previous venue still permeating, be it subtly within 14st's newest reincarnation. The main room was the biggest mod, having what used to be a clunky staged ripped out, opening up the dance floor significantly, throwing the dj booth in the corner, elevated from the crowd and rethinking the ambiance lighting. Its about damn time because I fucking hated the bright light in your eye bullshit that was there before. Everything else was a superficial dressing up of the same architecture that was there before, dolling up all the structural elements of the bar and walls with backlit slated brick finishes, acid washed rock inlayed walls, lots of umber and reds and so forth. Funny enough absolutely nothing was done to the floor, so i kept jokingly noting that i was still "walking on I/O" especially in the back patio with the square cement bricks with rock rows in between which will unforgivingly trip up a girls heels many times over. The ambience in general was pretty earthy & dark. The whole space was teetering on the vibe of a high end restaurant without the restaurant. It was a bit like getting slapped hard in the face with a wooden sign that says LOUNGE!
