The lane adjacent to KFC on Linking Road in Bandra is one of the busiest in the city when it comes to nightlife. You enter and there's Bar Stock Exchange immediately to your right. Bonobo is located next to it. Tap Resto Bar lies diagonally opposite that. Turn into a bylane and you'll find The Den. But if you choose to walk further down the main street, you'll hit Monkey Bar first and then Eddie's. It's, in fact, one of the few places in Mumbai where a nightcrawler can go pub hopping on foot. And if you choose to end your drinking spree with a bout of dancing at a grungy club, you can now do that too, since that's what a new venue there called The Council offers to patrons.

We head there on a night when a live gig meant for easy listening is taking place. Enter the building that houses Starbucks and take a lift up to the third floor. It opens to a small corridor with a large door at one end. Push it after displaying your entry stamp to a bouncer, and you walk into a large empty room with a distinctly industrial vibe and a long bar at the back. Two acts play one after the other on a long stage to the left when we visit. But this isn't the usual structure. Nor is the programming normally along easy-listening lines. The place is meant to be a straight-out nightclub in the nature of the warehouses that have been turned into electronic music venues in New York and Berlin. So what you'd usually find are a few tables and sofas in place of the stage that's been set up, and a left-field DJ spinning underground tracks from a console opposite that.