Gravity Sound Bar

Gravity Soundbar is a nightclub located in the Entertainment District.

It hosts themed events most nights, such as Wayback Wednesday and She Likes It Saturdays (a vast improvement over He Thinks It’s Okay Friday and Please Stop It Now Sundays) and often showcases celebrity guests such as Karl Wolf.

I visited Gravity Soundbar on Radioactive Friday after seeing the film Gravity as part of a celebration of the space-time continuum. The club experience was strikingly similar to the film experience (warning: no spoilers are ahead. If you want movie spoilers, visit Wikipedia or sit at the back of the King Streetcar during rush hour to listen to people drinking pumpkin spice lattes and rave about George Clooney’s magnetism).

Much like seeing a 3D movie in the 21st century, the cover to get into GSB was a bit on the expensive side ($15 except Saturday, which is $20). Luckily, getting on the guestlist can bypass the charge completely (for ladies) or take $5 off (for gentlemen) if you arrive before 11pm or midnight, depending on the day.

Like any good story, Gravity evokes feelings of love, anger, isolation and relief. Similarly, Gravity Soundbar is all about the feeling. Upon entrance to the club, guests are subjected to a seriously in-depth pat down that gives the TSA a run for their money. Though I’ve been to many nightclubs in Toronto, I have never had such a thorough body search. I offered to turn my head and cough, but the guard declined.

Gravity is set in space; while Gravity Soundbar has a lot of space. It occupies one big room with a dance floor and bottle service booths and one small room with seats and a more relaxed vibe. There is also another floor upstairs should you want to gaze creepily Kurt Russell-style on the people below. The club is decorated with LED lights, lasers, and lots of white laminate, clearly a tribute to the era of living where being cool meant you had an MSN name with toggled case letters, multiple tildes, and references to your three week long relationship with a girl you never actually spoke to outside of algebra class.

Gravity was beautifully scored by Steven Price, who used various types of music and sound to convey emotion and information. Despite no clues from the name, the highlight of Gravity Soundbar is the amazing sound system. It uses digital sound which creates simultaneous feeling of euphoria (“What high quality sound! I can feel it in my chest!”) and shock (“Is this a heart attack or are they just playing Heart Attack?”).

I ordered a vodka soda ($6) which was pretty good for $6. The staff were friendly and attentive, a nice departure from what is sometimes seen in the Entertainment District. At around 11:30pm, the club started to fill up with a wide variety of people. Patron’s ages followed a bimodal distribution (i.e. most patrons were under 25 or over 40) and the population was high in miniskirts and maximum grinding.

Overall, Gravity Soundbar seemed pretty middle-of-the-road; while some parts seemed great (for example, the sound system) other parts seemed a little sketchy (for example, some stalls in the bathroom lacked doors). When combined, however, all these factors seemed to have a synergistic effect that made the club incredibly popular, as evidenced by the patrons inside (as well as all the patrons waiting in line outside). It seems that like the film, the good parts outweigh the flaws.