Whammy

Ah, Whammy. Highlights: Dark, Good bands play here, can get up to all kinds of mischief in dark booth areas, drinks are cheap-​ish, Security are cool cats and it’s close to Sal’s for a pre-​home snack. Décor features are a Elvis bust at the bar and retro pictures on the walls. Screwed onto the walls. Lowlights: There is a high chance of stickiness depending on the night of week/​event being held. Bathrooms can be dicey, the middle ladies toilet has never locked/​had a functional lock in my memory. Has recently had a foosball table added — I don’t understand this, as it is a live music venue. Anyway, always a interesting night when Whammy is involved. Boo on the fact that Cider is no longer on Tap, however is is still available at the close by Wine Cellar.

I’m embarrassed by how long it took me to realise the pun in the name.
Whammy bar is like a lot of music/​performance venues: the quality of your experience here is directly related to what’s on. Good band: good night. Crappy poser art-​noise: bleeding eardrums and regret. It’s a gamble, but a fun one to make.
Whammy has all the requisite dive bar trappings — low ceilings, awkward stairs, an unassuming entrance. The crowd is your typical fashionable scene, but not too teenage to make you feel old — although again, this depends somewhat on the band playing.
They don’t just have bands playing, I’ve seen poetry recitals and comedy here. But the best times to be had are the rowdy live music nights, when the energy’s deafening and everyone’s bouncing off the ceiling.

I’ve said it about The Wine Cellar and I’ll say it about Whammy too — this place treats bands (and their respective door bitches) incredibly well.
Booking a gig at Whammy (or The Wine Cellar) is done through Rohan, a professional sound tech who will make your band sound pretty gosh darn good. He’ll do it for $ 100. Get 6 – 10 paying people through the door and you’ve broken even already. Accommodating about 150 people more than Wine Cellar and starting later in the evening, Whammy is the place to go if your band wants to be late and loud. Doorman Will is a massive boss as well — about as courteous as a man who deals with drunk idiots can be.

The last time I was at Whammy Bar they appeared to have resurfaced the floor with some sort of crunchy, textured covering, but no, it was just that there had been so many glasses thrown to the floor in either delight or a nihilistic expression of rebellion.
This is a properly grungy place, good. They book almost everyone and anyone; if you’ve been here early in the week, it’s likely it’s because you know someone performing and you feel compelled to support, despite worrying that you might have contracted something from the toilet seat here.
Watch for all the tight pants in attendance: if anyone drops anything on the ground you’re likely to have to pick it up for them as their movements are severely restricted, and you don’t want to have spend all night scrabbling around on said floor.

The Wine Cellar’s noisy younger brother. The Whammy Bar is somewhere between a bar and a house party, a favorite venue for underground bands. I saw a local electro folk duo perform here, they were great, complete amateurs who played with confidence and enthusiasm. Sometimes you might find a door charge, depending on who’s playing.

Located inside St Kevin’s Arcade on K rd, Whammy Bar simply exudes with trendy grunginess and griminess. They host a variety of things (mainly music gigs) but on the occasion stand up comedians and the like. Be sure to check their website for news on any upcoming performers. Whammy Bar is connected to the Wine Cellar a neighbouring bar. And if you’re feeling hungry after vomming up 6 pints of beer over the person you were screwing in the toilets, Sal’s pizza is two seconds away, or if you’re really committed, cross the road to Hard Luck Café for some yummy taco’s.

Nestled in the depths of St Kevins Arcade, Whammy Bar acts as a last bastion of the «underground» in Auckland — quite literally, as it is two flights of stairs down from the main road. The last time I went to Whammy, a guy broke his knee — then came up and down the stairs twice in the hope of seeing the DHDFDS play an encore — well worth it considering they set up two drummers on the ground in front of the stage. The bar itself is not far off what in America would be called a «dive bar» — but it’s a stylistic choice, and one that works well. There are booths set around the outside walls where all kinds of seedy activity takes place, and a large outdoor smoking area. Occasionally they open up the doors between this and the wine cellar, allowing for a festival-​esque atmosphere. The drinks range is decent, nothing to write home about but encompassing a price range from «day-​before-​dole-​day-​what-​can-​I-​get» to «just-​got-​a-​bonus-​give-​me-​top-​shelf.»