Club Report: ICON (DJ Baby Anne)

Dressed in a trendy top, skinny jeans and skinny heels, DJ Baby Anne returned to hometown Orlando last night for the first of a series of concerts at ICON. Sticking with her renowned Break Beats, she had the large crowd moving from the moment she took over the reins from DJ Chris B until she turned them over to DJ X nearly two hours later!


It was a Mannequins reunion of sorts! I recognized at least two dozen people who used to have a home on the revolving floor or in the dark corners of our old club! You might recognize some of the old crowd here.



Baby Anne returns for 3 more concerts at ICON during the coming months: 18JUN with DJ Überzone, 02JUL with DJ Kraftykuts and again on 30JUL with DJ Hybrid. Admission last night was just $5 so if they stick with that price point, these subsequent shows should do really well. Don't forget that DJ Icey performs this coming Saturday night at Firestone Live!

Club Reports: Wall Street Cantina & IBAR

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Lots of clubs were open Sunday night in downtown Orlando. Wall Street Cantina had a DJ right on the street playing Top 40 to a very inebriated crowd, pictured here doing the Cupid Shuffle!

When I went into Independent Bar around 11pm I asked the doorman how it was and his response was that it was already more crowded inside than other Sunday nights. And it only got more crowded as the night wore on as the DJ played mostly 80's but not a lot of the New Wave 80's they play at IBAR on Saturday nights. Not pictured, but the lines to get into Tabu for Latin Night were incredibly long from both directions. They had to have had a capacity night there.

Club Reports: Ybor City (Tampa)

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The long weekend made it ideal to spend one of my free nights checking the club scene over in the Ybor City club district of Tampa. My night began with some disappointment because Club Tantra was closed. Formerly and better known as Amphitheater, the club features a small revolving dance floor downstairs and typically techno upstairs. The club is not out of business but they simply weren't open Saturday night!

Empire is still in business though. One of Ybor's largest clubs with multiple dance floors both downstairs and upstairs. Hip Hop all the way!

There are a couple Green Iguana bars in Tampa. This one had a live band playing hard rock to a dancing younger crowd.


Coyote Ugly has a branch in Tampa and it was pretty packed to the Top 40 playing DJ. Like its New York City and film namesake, employees like to hang out on top of the bar and patrons are invited up too as long as they're female and pretty! I'm kind of surprised Orlando doesn't have one of these considering we have nearly one of everything.


Hip Hop everywhere though. Skye had two long lines approaching the doors both both directions with a mix of races. The same could not be said for Full Moon Saloon and Prana which are situated side-by-side. The same music was drifting outside the doors yet nearly everyone in line for Prana was white while nearly everyone in line at FMS was black. What's up with that? The Honey Pot is a lesbian bar along the 7th Avenue strip.


And then there's The Castle, kind of like Orlando's Independent Bar but to the third power! Large, dark, smoky, goth, industrial, it is built inside a former church. The lights were not impressive but the sound system was incredible. The music was Industrial/Dark Wave but the people were really getting into it. A friend had told me about an outdoor patio I never knew existed and I checked that out too (below) and it was more of the same!

Club Reports: CityWalk

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This is a Thursday night report from out at CityWalk. I wouldn't call the clubs "dead" but they could hardly be called crowded either. Red Coconut was kind of like shown here, perhaps a few more in there closer to midnight.

Ditto for 80's Night at The Groove. Never got full. It's so unpredictable because some Thursdays when you'd least expect a crowd, it fills up!

Latin Quarter had the largest crowd of the three; it always does on Thursdays for Ladies Night. Best dressed too!

Congratulations to California for becoming the 4th state to generate over 1,000 hits on this website since the flag counter was added last July! As the old song goes, California knows how to party!

PI at PH

Did you ever go to Pleasure Island (and in particular Mannequins) during the ending weekend of Gay Days? OMG, it was pure chaos! But with PI gone, what do do? Well Parliament House is not standing still. This coming Thursday night they are hosting P.I. at P.H., a disco style event featuring DJ Dido. And as their advertising shows, one of our favorite Mannequins bartenders, Dawn will be a guest bartender on duty. This will surely be as crazy as the old days!!

PI Update: Not Much

The heat and humidity that make Florida summers famous have arrived in time for Memorial Day weekend. But what better place to sweat it out than beautiful Pleasure Island.

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Over next to Mannequins, that previously reported project that removed trees and bushes has evolved into....nothing....yet.


All the door windows that were open to take a peek into Motion have now been blacked-out. If anything is happening inside, it's a secret. Sources say though that nothing has yet happened inside. Over at Laffer's Cantina, bartender John (Mannequins) invites readers to come out and buy a drink and tip him well. He confirms that there haven't been any new rumors about the island in a few months!

Here are a couple of sweet new additions to Celebrate Tonight. Finally some eye candy out there! The 5:30pm edition of CT was quite dead tonight. It's just too hot and humid to get anyone to stop before sunset so they play bean-bag toss instead.

Over on the West Side, the price of the Characters in Flight tethered-balloon ride has increased from $16 to $18 (adults) and $10 to $12 (children). Children 2 & under are now free but please don't dangle them over the side as that is frowned-upon.