For most of us, Sound Bar means sleepless nights full of “Tequila Sunrises”, “Watermelon Fusions” or lots of beer. This night we’ll spend with those for whom Sound Bar means work. Boys and girls of our age, they will take Verve on a sober tour “behind the Bar. Please, get ready for “One night with the “Masters of the Sound” - the crew of the Sound Bar.

8:30 p.m. At this time of the day, you would never recognize the place: sparkling surfaces, gentle music, several local teenagers enjoying their afternoon coffee and three staff members calmly preparing for the looming party. Nothing portends the wild partying spirit that will take over the place in several hours, when cigarette smoke will cover the club and DJ’s mixes will turn on the dancing crowd. Few know that Sound Bar opens at 5 p.m. and is known as a coffee place among locals.

 “We used to open at 10 a.m., but there was no point in working so early,” says Zoran, the owner and one of the club’s DJ’s. Always around, he is either playing music himself or enjoying the mixes of Ivo, the other DJ. A senior at AUBG, Ivo is also your best call if you want to hear your favorite song on a Thursday night … or anytime Zoran is not around.   

The other members of the Sound crew are the bartender Vasko and the waitress Tsveti, both young, cheerful and welcoming. By young, I mean really young: Vasko has just graduated from high school and Tsveti, also working as a model, is in the 12th grade. Since the night has not started at its full yet, they offer to show us around. Have you ever wondered what hides on the other side of the big “alcohol wall” of the Sound Bar? Let me tell you…

As you get “backstage,” you bump into the huge storage of juices, fruit and mixes. But do not get too excited—all this will be gone in two hours, as the party starts to kick in.  The first to disappear is beer. A cooler with 200 beer bottles is always there as a backup. “During a busy night we sell about 400 beers,” says Petya, the Sound Bar manager. She also explains to us the logic behind the arrangement of the bottles on the shelves: “Cheaper alcohol is on the lower rows, going higher up means a higher price.”     

Petya is keen on talking about AUBG-ers’ favorite drinks and tastes in partying. She has been Sound Bar manager since its very opening in June 2008 and is glad that many of her customers eventually became her friends. “Students from the American University aren’t a wild crowd; however, during finals and midterms the pressure builds up and erupts in a mess for the Sound Bar.”

t’s 11 p.m. The night shift begins and it is time for Vasko and Tsveti to leave. Thursdays are tough, so the coming crew is double the regular size. Bartenders Ivan and Georgi and waitresses Silviya and Lili will be handling the overload of AUBG-ers tonight. The last to come are the two guards—Ivan and Niki. Their job does not include face control or using force, only an occasional “be careful” pat on the back. “I’ve been in the business for 17 years now. In this job, the longer you work, the better you can sense potential problems,” says Ivan and winks assuredly. AUBG-ers generally don’t create problems, but even if they do: “[…] we get them, pull them outside and wave them ‘goodbye’. That’s it.”

After talking to the guards, we are going back to Zoran, the owner of the place, to ask him several questions

V: How did you come up with the name and concept of the place?

Zoran: Sound bar is actually the name of a unique club in Chicago that I had the pleasure to visit while being in the US. My idea was to create such a place here: with no chalga what so ever and lots of retro. From the very beginning, I intended to attract AUBG-ers, but it turned out they preferred commercial music rather than retro, so I hired Ivo – a representative of your style.

V: What do you think of AUBG students’ party habits from what you’ve seen so far?

Zoran: I’ll tell you what I see in locals: they come, look around, if there’s no one interesting of the opposite sex, they leave. With you the trend is totally different: a small group, determined to have fun, comes in, they call their friends and, by the chain effect, the place gets filled. You know how to party!

Meanwhile, the typical Thursday-night in the Sound Bar continues. The place is full of life and the bar is overcrowded. Petya starts following AUBG-ers’ orders and writing every single one of them on a sheet of paper. She is concentrated, does not leave anything behind, and it seems that no noise around can distract her. It is essential that Petya’s calculations are impeccable since she is responsible for entering the revenues in the system at the end of every night.

Meanwhile, the boys behind the bar are swept away by a hurricane of AUBG-ers. Georgi is a bit nervous, as it is his first time working with English speakers. Luckily, no one bothers to use foreign languages. Semi-coordinated gestures of AUBG-ers waiting for their drinks guide Georgi towards the right bottles. With the help of his more experienced colleague, Ivan, Georgi manages to keep up with the speed. The bartenders’ hands work with incredible dexterity: the movements are extremely precise, almost robot-like, bottles fly towards the trash containers, and colorful beer caps cover the floor. Everything looks so chaotic and at the same time absolutely organized. Despite my best intentions, I am not of much help there. Everything is so intense that I only get the chance to slice half a lemon, wash a glass and drag two ice bags from the nearby bakery. The rest of the night passes in stocking juices and taking pictures of the bartenders.

5 a.m. Georgi, with a fresh cut on his finger, tells me how much he loves this job. Ivan, with a shy smile, enumerates the places he has worked at so far: Sound Bar, Piano Bar, Underground. He has quite an experience behind the bar and also on the baseball field, where he earned his nickname:  Dolton (a famous US baseball player). As Dolton looks at his watch, Petya says “Guys, we are all set to close!”

A final picture, a warm goodbye and off we go. It has been another exciting night at the Sound Bar.