Vancouver’s clubs, warehouses and dark corners hold fond memories for me. I’ve been running around them for long enough that most spots hold stories, even those that have passed on into the annals of memory. So when I heard the Rickshaw Theatre had opened and was keeping up the fight against tyranny of No Fun City, I couldn’t help but smile.

Vancouver ravers of a certain generation will remember the Theatre E. I do; it was there that I first linked up with the merry band of lunatics that would later become my close friends in Vancouver ambient outfit, Team Lounge. What was an old movie house in Vancouver’s downtown east side was repurposed as a home for at that time, glorious cascades of electronic music. Now under new ownership, it serves as a glorious home for music yet again.

My recent run -in with the glorious madness that was industrial legends Chemlab and 16 Volt was my first return, and the movie style seating lead to a very intriguing sight. You don’t see seats like that filled with goths decked to the nines too often. The Rickshaw seems to have filled a gap where the late lamented Cobalt’s shadow lay for a bit. Touring punk and metal bands now have a place to see and Vancouver has another appropriately sized venue in which to get its entertainment. It’s glorious.

The big neon sign out front harkens back to a day long forgotten by the young Vancouverites that will file in to see Isis, Caribou and dying Fetus in the next while. East Hastings was an entertainment hub in another time, when neon signs like the one out front of the legendary Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret. It’s also a sign that this may be returning and Vancouver’s battle for the right to change No Fun City may be won, not on the brightly light paths of the bridge and tunnel crows, but in the darker corners where imagination can run free.