The Drake 5.0: the party report

by: Chris Bilton

February 13, 2009 12:00 PM

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Easing my way last night through the crowd of post-Jian-Ghomeshi-introduction partiers packed into the first floor of The Drake Hotel, I finally touch counter and make eye contact with the bartender, ordering a traditional Labatt 50 as my own personal celebration of the boutique hotel-cum-culture hub’s fifth anniversary. But as I pull out a 20 to pay for my drink, the bartender utters that oft-unheard phrase: “It’s on the house.”

Well now. It’s going to be that kind of an anniversary party, is it Drake?

I slip back into the crowd to relay this happy bit of information to my anniversarial accompanists, and take a moment to survey just who exactly I have been bumping into during my slow progress back and forth across the room. Singer Lenni Jabour’s loungey cover of The Cure's “Friday I’m In Love” floats overhead while Adrienne Clarkson holds court on one of the leather couches in the front window (though I’ll later see some oblivious ass giving attitude to her hunky bodyguard/assistant as he shoulders a path through the lobby for the former governor general). Youthful hipsters (I swear, I will try to limit the use of this word) — all oversized glasses and angular mullets, the occasional ironic white wedding dress and some Bat For Lashes-style peacock action — intermingle with an older, more reserved contingent, which makes the healthy mix of clientele feel like a gallery opening meet-up between artists and their patrons.

Which is somewhat appropriate, considering the evening’s schedule of events. For tonight, the Drake will be doing everything that the Drake does, but all at once. Indie-rock, art installations, clever hotel rooms, celebrity DJs, oysters — all spread throughout the entire building like a massive theme park of cool.

Up in the Sky Yard, it almost feels like patio season as the warm afternoon has given way to a comfortably cool evening. This fact only makes art collective BGL’s Cheecha Muffler interactive installation seem slightly more surreal, as their culture-clashing of Arab and Canadian sensibilities appears to be lacking one thing: snow. Still, the Hot Drinks booth and car-muffler hookah (complete with disposable tips for a sanitary enjoyment), not to mention the campfire and toasted marshmallows, make for a soothingly-strange place to regroup and take notes.

Before heading into the hotel rooms, I wander into the Rec Room, where a video of Feist playing “Sea Lion Woman” is projected onto on a massive screen. I don’t know if Leslie’s video presence is intentional — like the earlier unsubtle clip of M.I.A. at the Drake subtitled “first ever North American performance” — or just a coincidental segment of the Rock Peaks installation. As for real live indie starlets, I pass by Spiral Beach singer Maddy Wilde in the corridor on my way to the rooms and wonder again why they haven’t yet seen heavy rotation on any of the city’s music video outlets.

The rooms, which I’d never actually been in before, provide some interesting outlets for artistic expression. While not quite on the same scale as the Gladstone’s Come Up to My Room event, installations like the Icelandic Love Corporation’s crepe cooking, a suite that's treated to low lights and flashing neon (though no mirrored coffee tables to complete the coke-crowd draw) and an entire room converted into a massive furniture fort are respectably clever in their own right. I do not, however, venture into the Acoustic Room (basically a room with an assortment of acoustic guitars) because I’m pretty sure that Feist won’t be making an impromptu appearance.

I realize that I haven’t yet spent any time in the Underground, and also that the Besnard Lakes are scheduled to take the stage. Coming down the lobby staircase, I realize just how close the hotel rooms are to the rest of the action in the Drake, and for a moment I entertain the prospect of moving in and living out my Hotel Chelsea fantasies. Then I realize Queen West is not the west side of Manhattan and William S. Burroughs has been dead for over 10 years.

Soon, the Underground is awash in the Besnards' sonic waves. Though stripped down to a four-piece, their sound is mighty as ever, especially on “Devastations” and a new track which had all the disharmonic density of Sonic Youth’s most cohesive stabs at making pop music. The room is packed when the band begins, but people slowly file out in search of the event’s other offerings — like an impressive dessert spread and an endless flow of appetizers. They’ll all be back within the hour when Thunderheist drops a new batch of seriously banging tracks and frontwoman Isis practically levels the room with her unrelenting intensity.

Despite the lure of sticking around all night and drinking on the Drake’s tab, I decide that it’s probably best to be a gracious guest and duck out at a reasonable hour. On my last pass through the main floor lounge I get the feeling that a few hours ago, the Drake’s front room was the place to be for a good portion of the city’s arts/culture/hipster elite, but at this post-subway hour is now just a classy place to get drunk for free. Still, if we’ve learned nothing else after five years of the Drake Hotel it’s that Jeff Stober and his crew sure know how to throw a party.

See also: What a Drake it is getting older and Jeff Stober's response

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The Drake 5.0: the party report

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