Black Out or Get Out: Underground Story

For over a year now, an underground revolution has been taking place on Miami, Florida’s South Beach. Commonly known for VIP velvet rope super clubs driven by bottle service and the perception of exclusivity, Miami sometimes gets a bad rap from music aficionados for being too superficial. However, despite the abundance of posh lounges, double-digit drink prices, and DJs who can’t break away from over-played radio bangers, there’s plenty of great music and great acts… if you know were to find it. It used to be the case that you’d have to venture off deep into Downtown or Wynwood to scope out a good techno party. Now, as America’s taste for deeper sounds has expanded, some of the those mega clubs are starting to take note. Story nightclub in South Beach is one of them. Thanks to the guys that make up LINK and Miami Rebels, the world’s greatest in techno, tech house, house and deep have a mega club party to call their own every weekend.

After shutting down under previous owners, the club formerly known as Amnesia underwent some serious renovations (including a new brand story and a completely new design) before reopening as Story. Gone forever are the white-washed walls, tiled floors and fully visible ceiling. The new club is a posh meets industrial hybrid that takes the elegance and luxury of a South Beach super club with dark vaulted ceilings, VIP sections and bars galore, and fuses it with the edgy appeal of a warehouse style venue. Rows of light cascade in a staggered style from the ceiling, bringing to mind the appearance of low hanging stars and making the ceiling (now strategically painted black) impossible to detect. Snaking around the immense columns inside the venue are even more strings of lights that look for all the world like the vines of some strange, otherworldly species of glowing ivy. The dance floor is sunken like a basement pit, and the number of LED light panels, laser strobes and fog machines would be impossible for us to count even if we tried to have that kind of patience. Perhaps one of the greatest asset the new and improved space can boast of its its Funktion One sound system, which has helped do justice to the long retinue of world class acts that have graced its elevated DJ booth.

On any given night, you might find names like Tiësto, Calvin Harris, Afrojack, Armin van Buuren and Hardwell spelled out in bold on the club’s giant marquee or hundreds of event flyers. On Saturdays, however, its quite a different story (pun absolutely intended). On Saturday nights, you will find names such as Paco Osuna, Dubfire, tINI, the Martinez Brothers, Catz ‘N Dogz and Magda (to name a few). In a nutshell, they represent the brightest and most in demand artists of the underground, and we only use the term “underground” because we’re talking about Miami, here (in some parts of the world, some of these guys are just as popular as Deadmau5 and Hardwell are here in the States). Usually there to warm up the floor is Hardline, a Miami local and one of the city’s most beloved resident DJs.

It’s a Miami nightclub. Drinks are expensive. A lot of people wander in expecting crazy drink specials and an abundance of $5 PBRs. Not so. A bottle of FIJI water will probably cost you around $8, and a cocktail can very well cost you over double that price. We recommend buying a bottle and reserving a table or drinking before hand at one of the more economical bars on South Beach (contrary to popular belief, if you know where to look you can find plenty of affordable drinking dives on the Beach). Yes, Saturdays are Story’s underground night, which means the cover charge to get in is significantly lower for guys and girls and the dress code is extremely lax, but drink and bottle prices are the same as any other night. Come prepared to spend a pretty penny if you’re planning on drinking inside the venue.

Despite its laid-back atmosphere and an emphasis on good music, do not let the word “underground” fool you – this is still Story, and when it comes to dancers and visuals you can expect all the bells and whistles you would see on any other night at the venue. Dancers pose precariously atop stages and bars throughout the club, dressed in dazzling costumes and managing to bend and contort themselves to the beat while wearing six-inch heels. Confetti blasters and smoke machines are always near at hand, ready to blast the crowd every time the headliner’s set reaches a climax or drops into a bass line. Even on Saturdays, prepare yourself for a breathtaking visual display that’s just as satisfying to your eyes as the headliners’ sets are to your ears.

Underground Story gets a 8 out of 10 for its fantastic roster of artists and for having the balls to do something different on the beach. Not only did they provide techno and deep fans an alternative to the beloved (but tired) nook-and-cranny hole-in-the-wall hipster lounges, but they have also managed to present deeper and less commercial sounds in a way that gets even the most mainstream EDM fans and club goers thinking about new kinds of music. In just a year, Underground Story has grown from a tentative experiment to one of Miami’s most successful and loved parties, and in a city where new clubs and new weeklies are constantly cropping up, being able to boast that kind of continuing success is definitely saying something.