Login / RegisterNew Orleans comes to Vancouver with the FanClub
Having kept the Yale Hotel bouncing for 25 years, the father-son team of Waide and Joe Luciak officially open their newest venuture on Wednesday (August 29) with a New Orleans-inspired venue called the FanClub (1050 Granville Street). “There are so many parallels between New Orleans and Vancouver, mainly the eclectic mash-up of cultural diversity that makes up our wonderful local performing arts community,” Joe Luciak told the Straight.
The FanClub is actually decked out with French colonial doors, old chandeliers, and other artifacts shipped up from the Big Easy. On top of that, the club is offering “your favourite local artists, micro-brewed beer products, hand-crafted muddled cocktails, smoked meats,” and—perhaps most significantly for the 300 capacity room—what Luciak describes as the “the number one sounding venue in the city.”
“Our primary design consideration was the acoustics and the sound engineering of the space,” he said, explaining that Seattle’s McCauley Sound, responsible for outfitting both Bumbershoot and Coachella, were brought in to do the work. “This is going to be their flagship Canadian venue,” he said.
Wednesday’s opening features burlesque (the Army of Sass), David “Boxcar” Gates, circus performers, and Shaun Verreault. And speaking of the Wide Mouth Mason frontman, he’ll be hosting a regular Wednesday night jam with friends and acquaintances. “Guys from Mother Mother, or Big Sugar, or Wide Mouth, or new bands like Blind God; they’re very talented and they’re sitting around and they’re jamming and they’re going, ‘Jeez, I wish we could do this in a club,’” said Luciak. Problem solved.
