If you’ve been to a live music performance and thought a more intimate setting would be ideal, where you’d be seated at a table enjoying your favourite drink, Blue Beat at Double Bay offers that experience.
Opened in November 2011, the venue was founded by Christopher Richards and Nicholas Rice, with a collective experience in entertainment and promotions and a string of venues such as The Basement and the Marquee nightclub to their names respectively.
Samuel Yirga (left) at Blue Beat
Samuel Yirga, a 25 year old young pianist from Addis Ababa played to a captive audience on the evening of June 9. The intimacy of the venue allowed the house to be fully taken by the talent of the young Ethiopian performer and his ensemble. This is a musician who has started an incredible journey in jazz. Whether solo piano or with his band, the fluency and power of the pieces that link back to their homeland make one hope that it is not long before he returns.
Blue Beat connects performers with the audience. Arrive early, and you may be fortunate to secure a table near the stage, or perch yourself along bar stools to the side of the stage. Sink into comfortable leather lounges at the back of the room or take up one of the cosy booths that line up one wall although not all offer a view of the stage.
The room has good acoustics and there is table service for food and drink. On the menu,you’ll find a selection of tapas, light meals, or more substantial food from the grill. Blue signature dishes include cajun-spiced lamb medallions, coconut prawns and seafood risotto. The bar serves traditional cocktails of the Cosmopolitan, Margarita, Caipiroska variety with a selection of house spirits, wines and beer but don’t expect anything fancy.
The ambience during the performance is captivating. The lights are dimmed and the POS screens are covered as not to detract from the performance but the wait staff doing an uncoordinated ballet around the room and constantly trying to clear glasses which are not empty is a little intrusive.
Blue Beat combines a concert venue of contemporary music with a bar and food experience in the heart of Double Bay. Come for an intimate appreciation of music artists in a comfortable and unpretentious setting.
Blue Beat
16 Cross Street
Double Bay NSW
www.bluebeat.com.au
