Approaching the club, we had to weave through the many smokers standing out front as we arrived in the wee hours of a Saturday morning. The good old 80s reggae hit “Red Red Wine” was playing in the main bar and dance area. You enter a somewhat crowded vestibule to where people check in their coats and pay the cover charge (free on Mondays, €2.80 on Tuesdays-Wednesdays, just over €4 to around €6 on Thursdays-Saturdays, depending on the DJ). On the left is a foosball table where a happy couple was battling it out.

As usual, the main floor of this long-standing club was jam-packed with punters grooving to a really eclectic mix including some frenzied bongo beats and soul-influenced funk. The mostly local DJs, many from the local alternative radio station, change often so there is a variety of music including R ‘n’ B, funk, hip-hop, break-beat and disco. These don’t seem to be strictly divided in style depending on which dance space you are on. The dark and semi-industrial decorated upstairs has a mid-sized dance floor by a crowded circular bar. There are TV screens set up around here showing music videos. The bar divides a separate area with tables where you can sit and talk since the music isn’t deafening. Large windows here give you a link to the outside world, making this place more of a blur between pub and nightclub.

The downstairs area, where Austin Powers would feel right at home, has more of an intimate vibe. Pink shag-pile carpet art and fluorescent flowers dot the walls. Here the dance-floor is tiny, and there’s a small seating area with another bar too. Prices are quite reasonable for drinks here and upstairs, with large draught beers at €2.80, a Corona bottled beer at €3.50, and cocktails €5-10. Overall, Pulkvedis has more of a casual and happy-go-lucky feel, with the somewhat alternative crowd mostly in their 20s and 30s. It’s not a place to see and be seen, but rather just to relax and be surprised by the music variety. There’s a 21 year age minimum and face control is apparently just to keep the really drunk people out.