Back in the days of Sona and Aria, there were lineups that wrapped around the corner of Bleury and St-Denis. The bouncers eyed everyone to size them up and down, deciding whether they were worthy of entrance or too grungy, deserving of a toss onto the street.
Sona's infamous back alley entrance
But those days days are over now and new places have come and gone. In their place, still newer ones are rising to the top. Yet there remains one key link from the past into the present and the future along this trajectory. His name is Tiga. He is the man who started Sona, a legendary DJ and producer on the techno and electro scene who broke from the underground into the mainstream with his hit remix of Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night“ in 2001. He also happens to run the esteemed label Turbo Recordings and, when Sona closed in 2004, started a whole new hip young thing with his “I Love Neon Parties”, which transformed the SAT and now the Belmont into an electro-lover’s paradise.
Occasionally like in the good old days, the lineup still twists its way around the corner. More often than not the action is inside by the bar, where feisty young things clad in lace and leather and skinny black jeans slam back Irish Car Bombs and Jager Bombs, or on the dancefloor where hip-shaking divas wearing Converse hi-tops and thigh-high boots do the shimmy shanga on shiny tiled floors.
If all this throbbing bass and high fashion energy is too much to handle there are plenty of more chill spots around, like Reservoir and Bily Kun, where jeans and a t-shirt are the status quo, and a stimulating conversation, a beer, and a casual smoke break outside are the maximum level of action encountered by the regular bar-goer. And there is an extra added bonus here: these places have food, too.