The Brick Bar is located in Bangkok on the busy Khao San Road, known as the backpacker center of the city. It is housed in a large cathedral-like building made of red brick that can hold over 600 people between the ground floor and upper balcony. The Brick Bar hosts live music nightly, featuring a variety of styles from Thai bands and some international acts. It has a retro feel with wooden tables, benches, and pinball machines and offers both Thai and Western food and drinks. The spacious atmosphere and crowds help cushion any echoes, making it a popular spot to experience the chaos of Bangkok.

1. The Brick Bar is located smack dab in the middle of the flow of human detritus that overflows around and through what may be the backpacker vortex of the world -- Khao San Road. The Brick Bar, which may be so named because it is made out of bricks, is located at the back of the Buddy Hotel complex which also contains a shopping mall of sorts. The main attraction here is live music and in that respect the Brick Bar is an equal opportunity employer. You'll find blues, reggae, pop, ska and other offshoots of musical styles on any given night attracting an equally diverse group of people coming to watch said music. Most of the bands are Thai but there are a few farang outfits showing up, most notably perhaps the venerable Soi Dogs, in what must by now be their 25th incarnation, playing mostly blues. Anyway, it's a great, cathedral-like building made of red brick and looks like it must hold 400 people on the ground floor with another 200 or so on the upper balcony-style level. The big wooden tables and ponderous benches give it the feeling of a medieval banquet hall as well as a communal atmosphere which makes it easy to meet up with the people here who are truly from all over the world. There are some nooks and crannies tucked away here and there with cushioned seating and a great long bar, a foosball table and pool. Two large staircases take you up to the mezzanine level where there's another bar, plenty more seating, another pool table and a couple of pinball machines. Talk about retro with the pins. The whole place is all very nicely constructed too, with nice wood and even some art work. There is a large, varied Thai and western menu with everything you might want to try if here for the first time. For example, Buffalo wings, deep fried pork chitlings and Moslem curry beef on rice, together with draft Singha and Heineken. The sound in the spacious room can be good if properly mixed even in such a large space and the presence of large numbers of people definitely helps, cushioning any echoing that might otherwise take place in a place of this size. This is certainly one of the more interesting spots in the city taking into account the music, the food and the crowd and would serve anyone well as an introduction to the barely controlled chaos that is the norm in Bangkok. BRICK BAR 265 Khao San Rd., Bangkok Open: 11 am/2 am 02-629-4477