Not like the good old days (The Toucan (Cardiff))

Member Name: niknakb

Product:	The Toucan (Cardiff)
Date:	03/11/09 (15 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: different

Disadvantages: shape of the building

The Toucan Club has had many homes in Cardiff. It was probably most famously on St. Mary's Street in the centre of town where it was a popular live music and rock club. It moved then to Splott which was a little far out of the way and it's popularity declined. It has now moved back to the centre of Cardiff and is on Womanby Street, a few doors down from the popular Clwb Ifor Bach.

The Toucan's new home is a building which has also been home to many other clubs. It was formally a bar/club called Sugar and has been many things since but all have failed to last. The building itself is very tall and thin like a town house, so the rooms are very small. With 5 levels it is versatile but each floor is limiting due to it's size.

We were persuaded to give the Toucan a try by the bouncer who told us it had 5 floors and a live band on the third floor. Remembering what the Toucan was like in the good old days, we went in. We were unfortunately a little disappointed.

The ground floor was a strange mix of reggae and funk. It was quite good but there were very few songs that I recognised and even then they were in such a strange mix they were hard to spot. The second floor was a restaurant which was closed, the forth floor was also closed. The third floor was the live band. This would have been good but it was so crowded because the other floors were no good so everyone was crammed onto this tiny floor.

The 5th floor had no music so we were pretty disappointed as there was only really a choice of 2 floors and neither were very appealing. It was too late to go anywhere else so we went back downstairs to the ground floor. The music did improve and there was a good mix of motown classics in with tracks I didn't recognise.

We did end up having quite a good night but with all the other places on offer in Cardiff, I don't think I'd go back, apart from maybe if there was a good band. Then again, the floors are so small I'm not sure I could be bothered with the fight for the bar and fight for limited space.

Summary: Try somewhere else first