I did not see a single soap-opera star at the rebirth of the traditionally gay Heartland clubbing zone in Braamfontein two weeks ago. The queue to enter hot spot DCM was snaking down the street, so I rather braved the sweaty throngs in the free-for-all venues, fleetingly glimpsing what seemed like every gay person I knew in Jo’burg. Only some days afterwards did I spot a smattering of Egoli actors in the society pics.
The following week I returned to see what has been billed as this year’s big thing on the fickle clubbing scene.
The new Heartlands (the old one had faded to a ratty row of clubs that doubled up as a drug factory) is DCM, a fashionable — and pricey at R50 a head — nightclub sporting a huge, glamorous mirrorball wall; Cruise, a dance bar that resurrects the tacky but popular commercial dance beats of the old Purple Fly; the suave, open-air Rhino Bar, which has a heated splash pool and four-poster beds to chill on; and the mellow Sugar Reef, which serves food and hosts rock and hip-hop bands.
Next to these is the independent, year-old Simply Blue, which dubs itself a venue for gay people ‘of colour”, with a touch of R&B cooling the dance beats.
But Heartlands marketing officer Bruce Walker points out that the Heartlands is no longer a gay-only area; it’s now ‘label-free clubbing”.
‘We have four venues in one, which we don’t label as gay, straight, black, white or coloured,” he says, explaining how the development forms part of the rejuvenation of inner-city Jo’burg, with the help of the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA).
Though the Heartlands is a private investment project, it’s part of the upgrading of the greater Braamfontein/Newtown area, including the Civic and Market theatres, with an eye on the 2010 Soccer World Cup. Says Walker: ‘It will be a one-stop shop: theatre, clubs, live music … you can have everything in one area.”
Sugar Reef is to serve quick and cheap breakfasts, and there are plans to open a health spa in the Heartlands and have a monthly artists’ market. However, gay clubbers don’t seem to care much for rock music, and hardened rockers might object to letting their hair down next door to a venue called Cruise.
‘If we start the cutting edge of having gay and straight venues next to each other, you will get people who won’t come, but you will have a crossover crowd,” says Walker. ‘Once people start knowing the area, it creates a whole vibe.”
Johannesburg is bidding to host the 2010 Gay Games, and wouldn’t visitors from abroad, used to an almost endless spread of gay entertainment in New York, London and Amsterdam, expect some good gay bars and clubs?
Paul Tilly, marketing officer for the Gay Games bid committee and Gay Pride coordinator, says the bid doesn’t involve nightlife as much as it does the technical aspects of hosting the Games, such as the sports facilities involved.
However, ‘I think the Heartlands is excellent,” he says, adding that he is impressed by the money spent in upgrading the area.
The Gay Games site inspection committee on Thursday attended a fund-raising social event at DCM, and the Heartlands will host a large afterparty for the Gay Pride march in September, which starts from Constitution Hill and not Rosebank this year.
‘I think it is superb and it is high time that private companies invest in the rejuvenation of the inner city,” says Tilly. He hopes the ‘metrosexual community will see the time, effort and money spent on it [the Heartlands]. It is important for nightclub society to engage with the rebirth and modernisation of Johannesburg.”
A poster in DCM proclaimed the Heartlands ‘Jo’burg’s Soho” — a brave claim, as the Sohos of this world aren’t created with the wave of a chequebook. Time will tell if the Heartlands has its heart in the right place.