Why We Love The Phoenix

Phoenix Concert Theatre
410 Sherbourne St, Toronto

You want to go out on Saturday night — where should you go? What should you do?

Sometimes you want to get dressed up in your newest gear, polish off your fancy shoes and head downtown to the latest, greatest clubs — listen to music you’ve never heard of, mingle with impossibly gorgeous and scantily-clad drunken women or tall, dark, rippling men who look like they’ve consumed two pounds of whey-protein supplements that day — and wake up Sunday afternoon with five new numbers in your phone and a ringing in your ears that doesn’t go away until Wednesday.

But sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you want your Saturday nights to be not so harried, not so stressful, not so coutured, and you want to hear music you already know and love. That’s when you go to the Phoenix.

The Phoenix is the Cheers of the Toronto club scene; it’s the comfy old sweater you can never throw away. Residing in a nondescript building on the edge of downtown nowhere near Clubland, the Phoenix definitely seems strangely placed at first glance; but, of course, that’s part of its charm.

The biggest part of its charm, however, is its history. Now, it’s very hard to get historical information about nightclubs, so I’m mostly working from memory here (if anyone could fill in the gaps or correct me if need be I’d be grateful). I’m not sure exactly when it opened — it would have been late ’80’s or early ’90’s. However, in 1990 or ‘91 came the revolutionary idea that put the Phoenix on the map. Toronto radio station CFNY (now known as 102.1 The Edge) began simulcasting Saturday nights — all the music being played at the club, commercial free, with an on-air host. Seems like a strange idea if you think about it, but it caught on and has been going strong ever since — the format has even been expanded to include four other simulcasts from different clubs Thurs – Sun nights.

As a marketing move, it’s pure genius; it fashions the club as something more than just a club — it makes it an institution. The Edge’s listenership ranges anywhere in age from 12 – 45 — the new generation brought up on a steady diet of Simple Plan and Billy Talent mixed in with the people who were kids in the ’80’s, tuning in for their fix of Depeche Mode and The Smiths. Host Martin Streek is a household name for many in Southern Ontario — he’s been doing the simulcasts for years and years. I used to listen most Saturday nights when I was younger, around 16; driving back home from a night of playing pool or hanging out in Oshawa, my radio would always be cranked to Club 102. What inevitably happens is that all these kids who grow up listening every week suddenly turn 19 and move to Toronto for school and what do they want to? They have to go to the Phoenix, of course. They have to finally see the place they’ve been hearing about for years. It’s already familiar to them — they’ve already got that warm sweater feeling.

Aside from all that though, the place itself is just plain cool. The Main Room is huge, containing one of the largest dance floors in the city (and, apparently, one of the largest mirror balls in Canada). There are three bars in this room alone, six total throughout the complex. The Main Room is the home of the Club 102 simulcast — a steady offering of new, heavy alt-rock faves mixed in with some staples of days past (My Chemical Romance leads into Rage Against the Machine leads into The Killers leads into Tool etc). This room gets packed by 11:30 and you don’t come up for air until 3. There’s also ‘Le Loft,’ a balcony overlooking the Main Room with its own bar and a plethora of couches if you need to take a break, and The Parlour, which houses the retro music party and a couple of pool tables. This room is nice because it’s good dancing (as opposed to head-banging) music, and it’s not as painful as the Main Room — but you do have the choice, which is nice.

And don’t worry if you don’t feel like wearing heels or tons of make-up or your patent-leather loafers — there’s no dress code. It’s as casual as you want it to be (you’ll be able to spot at least one fifty year-old dude in a Leafs jersey every time you go, I promise).

But don’t worry — they still have the impossibly gorgeous scantily-clad women too (sorry, no pics available). 03971semaj