Alterna-Club or Couples Counseling? You Decide

Perfect for Dancing or Standing

Club: Ocho y Medio

Calle Mesonero Romanos, 13

Metro: Callao, Gran Via

Can’t agree
with your sweetheart on some of those vital issues – like where to go on a
Friday night? Two friends of mine, we’ll call them T and K, feel your pain. T
likes to knock back his beers to punk/alternative music in hipster joints where
people wear square-rim glasses and carry sketch books in their messenger bags.
K loves hip hop and salsa while sucking down cocktails and shaking it all night
long. This conflict of interests makes them a difficult pair to take out on the
weekends.

Enter
basement night club Ocho Y Medio (Eight and a Half). After paying the 12-Euro entrance fee (one
drink included) last Friday night, we found ourselves in a dark, awkward
chill-out room. This space was dotted
with some of Ocho y Medio’s hip, young Friday-nighters in their funky ‘I’m an
artist’ outfits. There is, however, much
more to the club.

The
thumping boom of the main-room speakers had already lit up K’s face in an
electric smile. We followed the beats and found ourselves in a space rather
large for the basement club circuit creating a dynamic perfect for dancing or
just standing around with your mates drinking.

Speaking of
booze, our crew first headed straight for the bar where our punky, pigtailed
bartender was surprisingly efficient at getting us shamelessly liquored. Over
the rims of our mugs, T and I commented on the DJ. He seemed intent on winning you over -
whoever you were – playing mainly retro, alternative and the occasional
underground tunes but jumped-over with some totally dancy beats.

After a
while I scanned the room and found K splashing around in a sea of other cute
art-house clubbers getting down to Sonic Youth and the Clash on a raised
platform. While K was boppin’ the night away, T and I shot the shit while
enjoying the hip, underground ambience and red-tone modish décor.

By the time
we finally tumbled out of there drunk and content around, strangely enough,
Ocho y Media in the morning, I couldn’t help but notice the effect the place
had had on my two friends. Normally
they’re reduced to bickering by this time; instead, they were smiling and
holding hands. There’d been something there for both of them after all, and in
no short supply. So, maybe you and that
special guy or gal will never see eye to eye, but sometimes you can still find
a little harmony out there. All the
better if the harmony is jumped-over with dancy beats, no?

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