In case you missed out the first floppity jillion times we brought it up, this weekend is Edmonton’s first ever SOS Fest (we are very excited)!
But! that is not the only exciting news in Old Strathcona. This is also the inaugural weekend for a spanking new music venue on Whyte Avenue. (Did you see what I did there, with the linking and the segues and the seamlessness?)
Yup, LYVE on Whyte is the latest bar to launch in the Whyte Avenue area (8111 105 Street NW). Their grand opening was this past Wednesday, and according to LYVE on Whyte’s Rob Ferguson, the launch event, featuring Jay Sparrow and the Wheat Pool, “was awesome. It couldn’t have been any better.”
He adds that folks were lined up outside for good chunk of the night, which bodes well for business.
You guys may remember some of the former bars that graced this same spot, like the Urban Lounge, or more recently, Dirty Pretty (Let’s just add those to the list of now-defunct bars I can reference to make me sound old. Remember when Lucky 13 was Rebar? Remember when the Starlite Room was the Bronx? ).
I ask Ferguson why the location is being changed from a nightclub to a live music venue.
“The way that nightclubs go, they’re hot when they’re new, and then they cool down,” he says. “We actually wanted to be a venue right from the get-go.”
You might remember the Urban Lounge’s roof collapse back in 2007. After that, the bar moved to its new, but sadly short-lived location down to 105 St and Whyte.
Ferguson explains it seemed like the wrong time to launch another live music venue.
“We didn’t really think it was right,” he says.
But things have changed! LYVE on Whyte is now open for business, and patrons can expect to find live original music on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and cover bands on Fridays and Saturdays. You can also expect to see an original traveling act about once a month.
You can catch popular local cover band Mustard Smile playing this Friday and Saturday as part of SOS Fest.
