A good night @ Hard Rock Hotel and Cafe, Penang

According to my Penangite friend, this place opened not too long ago. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this place so much. With the fall in the popularity of the Hard Rock chain globally (no one buys Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts anymore, do they?) , I had initially thought that this place would be out of sync with the rest of 21st century nightlife. But I guess the people at Hard Rock were out to prove themselves relevant to detractors like me, as evidenced by their latest offering, the Hard Rock Hotel and Cafe Penang.

I was quite impressed with the Hotel and Cafe. Just like the timeless rock and roll music, the ambience is unpretentious  and remains up-to-date and relevant despite having rock stars of the yesteryear as their theme.

In true Hard Rock fashion, rock memorabilia abound all around the lobby. Guitars and performance costumes of popular music legends were hung inside glass displays, like museum exhibits to be gazed upon by their fans. Notable stars who have their costumes on display here include Bon Jovi, Limp Bizkit, The Supremes, James Brown, Aerosmith, Sir Elton John.

After that, we went for drinks at the Cafe. And boy, was it a good night. The secret to a great night out isn’t exactly rocket science:

some booze

+ good music

+ up for it crowd

+ good company

= success!

Of course, there were other contributing factors as well. For instance, the fact that the cafe wasn’t filled to the brim with people, giving you space to walk, dance and breathe. Or the fact that the waitresses had cute little black-coloured “classic American diner” dresses as uniforms.

Anyway, that night we had lots of booze, very good music, a very sporting yet mature and well-behaved crowd, and I was in the company of good friends.   Le awesome totallez, non?

And I haven’t mentioned the band yet, have I? Two words, awesomely talented. This being the Hard Rock Cafe, the band played excellently and gave a tight performance from beginning to end. Each instrumentalist was skilled and talented, as was the three vocalists. This also being the Hard Rock Cafe, the band proved that they knew their Rock and Roll front and back by playing almost every requested song with ease, from the latest Coldplay hit (’Viva La Vida‘) to classic Deep Purple (’Smoke on the Water‘).

By the end of the night you could see so many requests stacking up on their amps that they had to apologize for not being to play all of them. The only WTF moment was when they performed someone’s request for, “I’ve Got a Feeling”. Black Eyed Peas in Hard Rock? Really?

Anyone visiting Penang anytime soon should go hit up the Cafe while it’s still the place to go for great music and  service, relaxing ambience and good crowd. God knows how quickly things can change for a night spot.