o matter the consequences, it’s harder than hell to get to a dance club earlier than 11:30 p.m. Besides, everyone knows the real party never gets started before midnight. Arrive before that bewitching hour and you’ll most likely find a loose community of anxious, tight-lipped geeks of both sexes, transfixed on the loud, attention-starved banter of a few giddy cliques of club kids arriving the to the throbbing club scene.

Club 686 is no exception when it comes to the nightclubbers’ universal adherence to the late-arrival rule. The just opened club is packed with it; arts students mingle with androgynous dreadlocked partiers. This is where club kids blessed with rhythm and appreciation of tribal house put a little bounce in their Saturday night. All areas are bound to eventually get packed, and the whole place looks like a drunken abandon of kids cutting loose because they have no respect for sleep.

When Saturday night turns into Sunday morning at Club 686, the latest club to hit the block, this drinking and dancing temple of dance turns it energy into serving as Vancouver’s after-party scene. To be expected in a new nightclub, when other clubs have struggled with the same nighttime wars.

The idea of creating a high-end version of a dance club on West Hastings might on the surface seem foolhardy, but right now, it’s pretty much in our face. The first few Saturday nights have been a little bumpy - throwing a variety of theme-related parties, but while it never reaches the stage of transcendent enchantment, the club is still mighty good fun.