Sunday, April 17, 2011

Club Report: Amphitheatre Reopening (DJ Icey)

Name the famous venue with the coolest dancers.........
.....and a revolving dance floor..........
.....A CO2 spraydown!..........
.....where you can get lost in the fog!!!!!
No, if you guessed Mannequins, you'd be wrong! It's Amphitheatre in Ybor City/Tampa and the club reopened last night dedicated once more to electronic dance music! And it was absolutely sick!

 DJ Mondo (Floyd's, Green Iguana, 93.3FLZ) opened around 10pm as the crowds filed into the club. It wasn't just Breakbeats he was spinning, it was a whole variety of Dance hits! Awesome!
You'd be wrong too if you thought it couldn't get any better as DJ X came on around 11pm and took it up a notch, again spinning not only the expected Funky Breakz but also a lot of late 90's/early 2000's Dance/House classics you'd know from 95.3Party!
Of course everyone was there for none other than DJ Icey and the jammed club roared when he was introduced on the stage! He too did not limit is selections to Breaks; it was an incredible variety and you could tell he was hyped too from his movements behind the boards!
The dance floor is far smaller than what Mannequins offered however it was larger than I had remembered it from my one only prior visit years ago. But it also moves much, much slower than the one at Pleasure Island. At Mannequins if you were looking for someone just give it a minute and they'd circle back around to you. At Amp it seemed like a good half hour for one revolution!
Mannequins people all over the club. Ran into at least 15 PI people over to check it out.
It started to thin-out a little around 1am but all of a sudden a surge of people from the Lady Gaga concert in nearby St. Pete Times Forum came in and the club and the revolving floor were back to being crushing!
Awesome lighting has been added and there is no doubt Amphitheater is a first-rate operation! I can tell you there is no added-value in buying a VIP ticket as it only gets you upstairs where there is no dance floor and the VIP seating will cost you $400 for bottle service with limited views of the downstairs.


But no matter how crowded it got, just being on a revolving dance floor brought back so many memories and emotions that it is SO worth the drive over from Orlando. Of course it's not just the floor, it does come down to the music. In the coming weeks they've got DJ's Roger Sanchez, Above & Beyond (on a Saturday night) and Baby Anne coming up! I will be back!

12 comments:

  1. I missed this one but yes when DJ Baby Anne is there should be there!
    I have allways wanted to see the AMP! before it closed but I couldn't pull my self away from Mannequins and MY FAV bartender Dawn!!! but now i could go and all know why!

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  2. We all had a great time Brian..Only problem was it was VERY smokie which left our eyes burning and throats parched..Also quite an expensive night..$10 to get in and $10 per cocktail and they are only 10oz cups...$4 bottle of auqafina water...WTF...c'mon be freaking reasonable, not gouging...

    It was kind of like Mannequins but Mannequins is unique. The Amp seemed not as clean, not as "polished" as our beloved club. The clientele was much more diverse at Disney while the Amp seemed to be a young urban with attitude crowd.

    Beth and I are going again in 2 weeks to see ABOVE AND BEYOND so hopefully we will meet up with some old faces...

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  3. Interesting problem just arose....I just went to my Suntrust account and the Amp added more money to my bill..My bill was 40.00 for 4 cocktails and I gave a $7.00 for a tip...I look at account and the total billed to my account is $50.00....WTF...we have a problem

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  4. Mark, if you used your debit card, wait for the actual transaction to post as you may just be seeing the initial HOLD placed on it. Look again tomorrow for the finalized transaction and it should be accurate.

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  5. Regarding the makeup of club patrons, it was VERY diverse. Like the EPCOT shows on NYE, I was impressed by the number of those in their 20's embracing electronic dance music. But there were plenty of us there who also are old enough to have recognized all the classic dance songs the DJ's played from the original days of Mannequins. I agree it was way too smokey and it started to get too warm in their towards the end.

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  6. I guess where Beth and I were for most of the night, it was a much younger crowd..couldn't move much after midnight...on the other issue, my printed receipt states $40.00...Hmmmmm. We will square it away I'm sure...

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  7. KingBob, Still no word on the status of Mannequins? Does the floor still exist?

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  8. I'm hearing some chatter about Mannequins but nothing firm enough to speak about. But I do hear the revolving floor is still in there!

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  9. We agree about the drink prices, but that was the best night out since PI closed. The money was well worth it for the greatest music mixes from top DJ's. Did you listen to it Brian on the radio? We stayed on the floor for about 80 % of the time we were there. This is Shelley Lyn & Duane.

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  10. I heard the floor moved on revolution in about half an hour. It was real slow moving. It didn't appear you were moving. Glad you guys enjoyed it though.

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  11. The floor moved much slower than Mannequins floor but I was joking when I said it took a half hour to complete one revolution. More like 5 minutes. You could definitely feel and see you and everyone else moving.

    Mark/Beth & Shelley/Duane and everyone else from Mannequins, GREAT seeing you out there!

    Anonymous commenters, you don't have to select the Anonymous button when posting. Instead, select the Name/URL button and two boxes will pop open. Put whatever name you want in the Name box and you can leave the URL box blank. Then hit the Publish button.

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  12. I totally agree Duane. We had a great time and it was the best night of music since Mannequins closed. There are a bunch of photos of you taking photos on Amphitheaters Facebook page.

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