drink up!Far and away our most popular post in the last wee while was Jo’s ‘Drinking Wellington on the Cheap‘ from last week. Discussion of watering holes around Wellington seems to be a popular topic, as Stephen of Dorking Labs‘ ‘Drinks After Work‘ has joined in with his own bar review, the first of what he promises will be an occasional feature. What’s really good about the first review though, is his quick assessment of Bar Bodega, which Stephen rates as…

…a stinkhole, and so never let me grace its boards with my presence; at least not for some time. That’ll show them for cancelling The Puddle at the last moment, after the band had arrived in Wellington. Oh, and its proprietor Fraser MacInnes has shown (once again) (as if it was really necessary) that he is hands-down the biggest cock in the NZ band/bar scene.

The poor old Puddle. We saw the band putting their own posters up with sellotape down Cuba St the day before the gig: one member to hold the photocopied A4 ‘poster’ in place, another to stick it down with sellotape, and another to pull the lengths of tape required from the spool itself. Now that’s a band who work together well. We also hear via the grapevine that Fraser cancelled The Bleeders on Saturday night, also at the last minute, and after the band had pre-sold dozens of tickets, because the opportunity to host some lucrative corporate shin-dig had arisen. FFS, as the kids might txt.

Anyway, Bar Managment 101 aside, do check out Stephen’s review of Blend, or, if the quick precis is what you’re after, here’s the summary…

Don’t even bother. It’s attached to a backpacker hostel, fer fuck’s sake. In addition, the state of the “ladies” in the room – after several hours of free “bubbles” – led me to wonder if the bar-staff crumble E’s into the flutes before serving. I was going to post a picture, but instead I think I’ll just link to CollegeWildParties.com (warning: NOT work-safe). I’d rather go drinking at The Lazy Shag, and that’s now a car-park.

Also worth taking a look at is WellUrban’s ongoing Mystery Bar series.