Fast Re-Wind To This Way Cool Music Bar At The Heart Of It All!

There is something reassuring about finding a bar that is cool for the youngsters hanging out there, and in which you at the same time do not feel uncomfortable or out of place, no matter you are twice the age of the very cute waitresses and other youngsters.

It used to be you had to drag your ass down to RCA to get with the in-crowd, but nowadays the coolest places are scattered across this gigantic city and you need wheels to do a full-on pub crawl as the truly trendy spots stretch from Laksi all the way to the Minburi-end of Rama 9 and all points in between - not forgetting trendy Ram Intra of course.

So what a pleasure to find a cool chill out room with live music and passable snacks right in the heart of the city, and at the Rama 4 end of Sukhumvit Soi 24 no less. Here there is the remarkable Davis Hotel and the attached Camp Davis ‘plaza’ with Starbucks and dozy little Thai restaurants and an ice cream parlour with no sign, and the smallest boutique in the world…and that’s all downstairs.

But upstairs tucked away from such retail eccentricities is Re-Wind, the coolest and a very well-attended little bar in town. On a Saturday night the Singhakripop band plays hits from Top Of The Pops circa 1980 onwards and you can groove to Squeeze, Creedence Clearwater, The Kinks and even 10cc – very retro and very untypical, since the band are in their twenties and so are most, if not all of the customers! What you looking at?

Its not always like this of course with folk music during the week and other Thai bands playing Thai covers and rock and roll two or three night a week, but the bar is so comfortable and nicely laid out you don’t mind really mind who is playing as you order your bottle of Scotch, your fried cashew nuts and settle back for a bit of a night out with your girl and her very chatsome mates.

The bar is upstairs and it would be unfair to say it is anything more than a classy music bar although it does do a modest Thai menu of great specials like Yam and Som Tam and Kow Pat and Tom Yum and all the other great fast food dishes we all have come to love. You can nibble on French fries too and on cashew nuts and fresh fruits and generally get anything you might expect to help absorb the alcohol.

And who said young Thais were irresponsible when it came to putting out the proverbial fire?

Breathalyser anyone?

The room is nicely laid out with cool sixties-style sofas and seating, chill out lighting and low tables to hang over as you chat against the music. But it’s really not a problem as they have a very fine music system and have done a nice job compensating for the potentially bad acoustics by dressing the walls and ceilings to dampen any excessive treble. We visiting musos were very impressed and Her Ladyship and her friends never gave up a minute of chat the whole time we were there, while me and the bhoys were rocking it out to Sweet and Slade and Elton!

Rock on Jimmy Saville!

There is a cool balcony with elegant sofas and tables where you can sit and smoke your brains out and it ain’t a bad idea to get outside if you want to have more complicated conversations without losing the music, ‘cause the band is on that side of the room on a very tidy stage with great gear and good sound onstage reinforcement too.

It is a very welcoming place and the staff were great, giving us the star treatment the whole time, and we were paying standard cityholic rates for beer, whisky and snacks, with no tut-tutting when the bill came at 2 am– a few hundred baht each using the American Share system for quite a skinful when all is said and done.

And My Girl loved it too, demanding we get back there as often as possible, being of that generation who think that DJs are too cool!

He is one of the owners and to be perfectly fair, he did do a good job once the band had folded for the evening around 12 midnight. We were soon grooving and smooching to the best of Thai and Western pop so a good night was had by all.

And better still…only a ten-minute taxi ride home!

Re-Wind
Camp Davis
88/7 Sukhumvit Soi 24
Telephone 02 2603842
6pm to 2am