Saddle up at the Shift
The Midnight Shift’s refurbished upstairs bar will re-open on Thursday, November 12. Saddlebar will be a leather bar with an Australian outback theme. Planning on a number of special weekly nights is already underway including Happy Hour, Leather Beer Bust, a pool comp, and buzz cuts. Trading hours will be from 8pm Thursday-Saturday and from 6pm on Sunday. Better still, entry will be free.
So now that the Saddlebar has opened…What’s it like? Are the fetish boys going to check it out? Any Rubber experiences? Any backroom for some late night action? let’s here it Sydney guys?
Fabulous! Forum flamer Oliver now has a partner in crime. Stick to the forums guys, the vibe was great and like someones already mentioned its the company you keep or seek that makes or breaks a great night. The “theme” doesnt bother me nor excite me but it beats sitting at a keyboard all weekend tapping comments designed to flame forums.. cheers
Drew, I agree with you on that one. More CAFES to go to. A “Street” or Precinct is defined by its beauty, and Cafes give an area of “Choice”- Sleazy Bars are so 1970s guys.
Sydney has far more than enough Bars and Clubs to go to. Christchurch in New Zealand has just ONE. That one Gay Bar is a thousand times classier than any dreary Bar in Sydney.
ATT: THERE IS MORE TO BEING GAY THAN A ….”GAY BAR”
WAKE -UP BOYS!
there is a beautiful world outside.
I’d like to see some smaller lounge type places which are licensed and do a decent coffee as well. By that I mean venues that look like Gloria Jeans in Oxford St just opposite the Burdekin. And that don’t have loud music (I’m in the grumpy old man demographic).
I wouldn’t set foot in Gloria Jeans but that’s the sort of place I like in a venue. There are already plenty of places around with ear splitting noise and underdressed skanks on screen where you can enjoy a good chugfest.
You idiots – this is exactly what we need, more gay pubs for our community, especially ones that cater for the laid back/pool playing croud – all thats left is young pill poping, “I cant hear myself think becuase the music is too loud” places.
Im in my 20’s, I love our scene but allot of the times I hate it as our community is so discriminating and unsupportive of almost anything that it tries to achieve.
Sydney queens are not moving to Melb becuase of the clubs, there leaving becuase they have had enough of the mentality that gay sydney projects,it only takes half a brain to feel humane towards eachother – you should try it? *blond look*
Drew, you may not be a tragic alcholic, but you certainly sound like a tragic queen.
(please insert all bitchy come backs on grammer,spelling or anything else that comes out of your backsides in this space provided)
Well I checked it out last night and I’ve got to say I liked it. Still the think the theme is cheesy and unnecessary but it did have a bit of the vibe of the old Manacle and just might work. I’ll be going back.
Darling , I dont care if the bar scene falls apart some of us ARE NOT tragic alcoholics.
DEATH TO GAY BARS, I SAY BRING IT ON!!!
The shift would have been much better not spending a cent and just stopping charging for upstairs, everyone has been happy to crowd in downstairs because it is about the great music,
they just needed to open the stairs to connect downstairs and and upstairs together, yes there has always been a connecting stairs, so no cost and a great venue still has a dance floor,
Chris, Sydney has an enormous number of bars to go to. They may not be designated as gay bars but they are public bars where gay men and lesbians have as much right to enjoy as anyone else. True, some are not the sort of places you’d want to pass by – let alone enter. But then drunken violence affects straights as well as gays (as patrons of pubs in Coogee or Bondi know too well).
Personally, I think all the decorating and redecorating of the Shift won’t make a sod of difference. It’s an Oxford St bar so gay men will be there regardless. But if you don’t like the ambience then Surry Hills alone (away from Oxford St) has some nice little venues you can patronise.
I rest my case…
Sorry Peter, but a superficial medium like anonymous message boards should stick to superficial topics. But if you want to press the point, if we can’t agree on what makes a decent gay venue in Sydney then how are we going to influence laws on an international scale?
ok so i think the out back theme is a bit lame
but you now what the fact that there are fewer and fewer bars left to go to, and the more you turn you nose up at a theme the more this will becpme another gay bar doomed to close and since when has the theme made it a good night or not? my i belief that to have a good night or not it really depends on the company you keep or for some who you pick up ? so im going to support it because i belive we still need our comunity, also the more the patron tell the bars what the want the more it wall happen
It would ne nice if people spent this amount of energy commenting on a new bar in Sydney on OTHER issues in this newspaper like gays being executed in Iran,Ugandan anti-gay laws,Same sex adoption rights etc etc etc Or better still doing something about them.Makes you realise why we do not have equal rights,gay marriage etc here in Australia.
Why are so many of us critical when others have a go ?
At least the Midnight Shift management is attempting to provide a space for members of our community who are into leather.
Please stop all of your negativity towards this concept and give it your support.
Community should be about supporting each other.
It should never be about cannibalism from within !
Please consider ?
Oh Steve…..please, it was nothing more than some light banter.
I believe that the GLBT Communitie(s) should indeed celebrate diversity…..BUT an “outback theme” one thinks NOT!
Cheers xxxooo
p.s. But I will “give it a whirl” see you there !!!!!
References to “Gay men running for their lives as some old leather queen is chasing them in their chaps” is just the start of why Sydney is in the doldrums.
Gay men in San Francisco or Berlin would hardly look upon their older leather-oriented community with such an attitude of distaste. Younger guys in Sydney seem not to remember – or just weren’t around – when leather was a much more highly visible part of this city.
Some people wear it because they love the feel of it and some because of their sexual predelictions as well. Whatever it is, international gay destinations welcome the full gamut of all parts of our community. That was how Sydney used to be.
Whatever you think of the transformation of the Shift, how small-minded are the people who judge, based on one image? Tim Berry (from The Shift) was responsible for some of Sydney’s most celebrated bars like the leather & denim focused BARRACKS BAR.
Instead of being from Sydney, some of you guys sound like you belong in a child-minding creche for bitchy kids.
Steve
Sydney
I can see where Peter’s coming from. When I came out in the early days of the colony, the Shift was always packed out even though downstairs was one small room with wall-to-wall carpet so sticky it took 10 minutes to get to the bar -even though it was only a metre away. You’d go home stinking of tobacco and beer fumes but still enjoyed your night out. Venues were supported regardless of how cruddy they were (and boy, were they ever).
That said, there is no going back to the old days. Gay people today can enjoy a night out in many venues across NSW because homosexuality is more accepted today compared with way back when. Why go all the way into Oxford St when your local pub in the burbs is cheaper, friendlier and more comfortable? And it has decent food as well.
Did you look at that picture Peter? Who does ‘theme’ bars anymore? We know what we want from a venue but just what is the Shift expecting from us if that’s the makeover? The main problem with the upstairs bar was the exorbitant entry and drink prices. I’m prepared to give it a go but at this stage it looks embarrassing.
Bloody typical of our community. We whine when clubs close and we whine when clubs open ….. just goes to show how bloody ridiculous we can be.
Come one guys, stop bitching and give the place a chance … support it and other clubs on the strip and we just might see a return to the glory days everyone seems to hark back to.
Hmmm “Outback Australia”…Gay men running for their lives as some dumb redneck is chasing them with a pick axe.
“Shift Saddle Bar”… Gay men running for their lives as some old leather queen is chasing them in their chaps.
…..Priceless!!!! LOL
Yihaaa!
Yet ANOTHER bar on oxford street, as a regular of the old shift club, i think its a cop out to say they dont make money. Besides Stonewall and Columbian have that piece of pie.
I give it 3 months til they realise that a leather bar will not work. Pfft, not my money wasted. So much for an original idea and a great place to go out to.
Goodluck Saddlebar LOL
it does sounds stupid but lets give it a go 1st…… yehar!!
They can’t be serious if this is the long awaited upgrade. The straight community get the sophisticated glamor of Ivy and the pool party space..we get some lame hand painted out back stage set…lift your game owners of the few gay venues left …this is insulting and frankly very embarrassing. No wonder “straight is the new gay “and everyone is moving to Melbourne !
An Australian outback theme? What, millions of blowies buzzing around and road-killed wallabies on the dance floor?
“A dingo took my beer…”
A Disney leather bar????
Oh dear God…..how LAME!
LOL