Cape fear / U vier? (U4)

Member Name: Morgenhund

Product:	U4
Date:	30/07/01 (53 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: late opening hours

Disadvantages: queues

U4 - (pronounced OO-Fear) is so named because of its proximity to its eponymous underground line, being a stones through away from the ungerground stop Meidlinger Hauptstraße in the 12th District of Vienna. In the past apparently it used to be a venue for aftershow gigs, with artists such as Prince and Sade, as well as Austria's favourite son, Falco, purported to have played here. The club in now however predominantly themed, with veritable delights such at the Notte Italiana (Italian Night) where they play Italian pop and disco music - I refuse to go in case they fire up the Eros Ramazotti... Cringe...

Saturday nights are "Boogie Nights" and the theme is rather closer to the film title thank you might think. It is somewhat surreal to venture in here and be confronted by pornography, and I didn't initially believe a friend who said that there were porn films showing in here. The music is of variable quality, although is on the whole fairly mainstream, and the club can be very full indeed and not easy to get in - I remember queueing for an hour in March with guests from Prague and then stil getting turned away.

The club is split into two rooms, and is your typical cavern type place, with drinks not too expensively prices - spirits are expensive anywhere in Vienna and thers is not too much of a price-hike over the bar prices. Admission is ATS 100 (approx £4.50) on Saturday nights, and some nights during the week it goes down to ATS 60. It opens at 10pm and shuts at 5am, by which time the Undeground is usually running again.

The official website (www.u4club.at) has a lot of information on what is on. This site also contains a link to the bouncer/photographer's home page where there are a lot of photos from Club nights (www.conny.at) The bouncer Conny has also written a book about the first twenty years of U4 - which is worth a look at if you can find a copy.

All in all the club is friendly enough, although g
enerally people go in in groups and tend to stick together. The crowd is fairly young (at 24 I was probably one of the older people there!) and the atmosphere, although the music makes the place, and a lacklustre selection never helps the cause.

Summary: