Gone, in time.
The hottest gay disco in town off the Rembrantplein. Open 11pm til 4 am or later…
Amstelstraat 24
Amsterdam
IT
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Argos
On the Warmoesstraat for the gay and bizarre…Permanently closed for some time now.
Warmoesstraat 95
Amsterdam
Phone: 020-622-6595
COC – Amsterdam
A disco club and a venue for meetings and discussions of gay-sexuality and parties. The discussions range from legal issues to coming-out. An extensive schedule of events, click on their link if you want more info. (In Dutch and English.)
Stablemaster
Once a Gay leather bar and disco. This place was for the really brave… very INTERESTING list of events on their website.
Now Permanently closed.
Warmoesstraat 32
Amsterdam 1012
Phone: 020-624-5573
Concertgebouw
Official home of the Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest, on the Museumplein. A fabulous concert hall well-known for excellent acoustics and free lunch-time concerts for Amsterdammers. I have enjoyed several wonderful concerts there, while basking in the glow of the masters who have played in this venerable hall. The orchestra also holds an occasional concert outdoors on the Museumplein, which has recently been completely renovated.
Bird Snackbar & Thai Restaurant
Fancy Thai place with a “snackbar” across the street. The “snackbar” is one of the most popular places on the Zeedijk, with patrons lining up and ordering in advance while waiting for one of the small tables on the sidewalk. The service was fast and friendly, and food arrived quickly. Tom Yam Koeng soup was delightful, spicy-hot with lots of lemon grass and galanga, and featured a couple of great big shrimps. The Pad Thai (my benchmark for good Thai cooking) was okay, and only mildly spiced. You need to ask for the hot chili peppers in this place! My friend’s dish of Sweet & Sour Chicken was unfortunately flavoured with tomato ketchup.
A nice place for a quick meal, reasonably priced.
Conscious Dreams – Kokopeli
Smart shop on the Warmoesstraat with lots of open airy space. Displays of San Pedro cactus with Peyote grafted onto them is interesting, as well as lots of books and information for the shaman in all of us. Of course mushrooms and herbal preparations for your head are the order of the day here. They offer a neat chill space in the back of the shop, overlooking the old inner harbor of Amsterdam, and the canal tour boats docked there. I’m curious about the “brain machine” they have back there, I’ll have to go visit again… They have two other locations in Amsterdam as well.
Media Markt
This huge two-story megastore located by the Amsterdam Arena has just about everything electronic you could desire. Probably the best selection of stereo equipment in the city, plus TVs, computers, printers, phones, car stereos, major appliances like refrigerators, washing machines, small kitchen appliances and much more.
Good prices and excellent selection make this the place to get those things you really need. They take credit cards, but returning items is quite an experience, as you must go to another entrance, wait in line in a very small room, and then, rather than just refunding your money or offering a replacement, you pretty much must prove that the item is defective or they won’t give you a refund! And yes, they’ll make you take it out of the box and plug it in if necessary and they have workbenches in the back to test it out too…
Convenient access via the metro, Bijlmer station. Or you can park in the Arena parking lot (one of the cheapest in the city).
Paradiso
This is one of the most popular venues in Amsterdam. A converted church now serves a more eclectic congregation of ravers, jazz freaks, rock fans, performance artists and more. The main hall has a great dance floor and balcony. Other halls in the basement and top floor host djs and jam sessions into the morning hours. A monthly membership fee is added to tickets, which are usually very reasonably priced.
AFAS Live
Once known as the Heineken Music Hall.I finally got to check this place out for a jazz concert. I was expecting a sophisticated venue with comfortable seating and good acoustics. What I found was something else…
My first icky, sticky step into the auditorium was a forerunner of things to come. Rather than having the seats out on the floor, they had chosen to clear the floor, no doubt to pack more people into the hall, to make more money.
Before the concert started, the seats in the remaining stands in the back were already completely full. So we had no choice but to stand on the rubberized floor for the entire concert. This wouldn’t be so bad I guess, despite paying 30 Euros apiece, but unfortunately the floor was nothing more than a pool of beer, or rather beer from the last concert, drying and sticking to everything. It seems rather than actually cleaning the floor, the beer just gets pushed around so it dries more evenly. The last thing you would want to do is try to sit on this floor. You might never get up!
Still the concert had not even begun, and I was already having doubts about this venue. At last the band came out, and much to their credit, they were excellent. I could almost forget about the floor, and the beer… But then we tried moving around as our view wasn’t great. Next thing I know I’m standing in a huge puddle of beer. In fact by the middle of the concert, the puddles were everywhere. Not to mention the plastic beer cups being underfoot. I remember one really soft passage of music, where the artist was doing a very moving solo…you could almost hear a pin drop, then CRUNCH! Another plastic cup solo as counterpoint.
Yup, a real sophisticated venue! I spent almost as much time checking out what was going on underfoot as I did paying attention to the music! Now I know why they call it the “Heineken” Music Hall… Just one visit and you’re wearing “Heineken” all over your shoes.
I’m truly impressed with the wide range of music and the sheer quantity available in Amsterdam. But the venues in this town REALLY SUCK! I think the powers that grant these venues licenses really need to get out and experience the way other cities host events.
I’m tired of being smoked out, pushed around, caught in endless queues, stuck behind 8 ft tall Dutchmen, unable to see anything! Then to have trash piled up around my feet, beer soaking into my shoes, incessant chatter drowning out the music, and to PAY good money for all this “pleasure”… FUCK IT!
I may just give up on live music altogether, or go to a more “civilized” place to find real culture… If you don’t mind being treated like another piece of trash on the floor, then this is the venue for you… It’s really too bad, because this venue books some of the more popular acts that come to Amsterdam. While hard core punks & clubbers might willing to put up with this shit, jazz enthusiasts like me will just have to go elsewhere for entertainment. Why must every venue suffer from the club scene mentality?
I’m surprised the architect didn’t just draw a huge beer can. It would’ve been much more appropriate.
AFAS Live is just south of Amsterdam near the Arena. With an advertised 5,500 “seats” (if you’re lucky, otherwise it’s only about 1,200 seats or the beer swamp – bring your clogs!) it’s bigger than any hall in Amsterdam, and the acoustics are good, but not great. If there were some other redeeming features to this place, I’m sorry, but they got drowned out by Heineken beer…