Panic, Toronto’s beloved and long-standing new wave/alternative/post-punk dance night founded by DJ Lazarus, has just announced their fall 2023 dates with big news – the launch of a dedicated new venue at 1279 Queen Street West: Ground Control, a new music venue and cocktail lounge inspired by David Bowie.

With our local alternative live music scene, dwindling music festivals and Toronto’s historic rock clubs struggling both pre-and-post pandemic, not to mention our post-millennial general malaise we postpunk kids should have seen coming (and kept on dancing anyway), the latest slate of Panic video dance party nights is worth a pause, a round of applause, and all the support that this city’s too-often starved music heads can muster.  

Social media is the *only event poster and entertainment news we have left anymore, and as we all know, it’s make or break: a passive like, a flash of motivation, but, just as easily, we can get distracted by modern life’s endless distractibility and adulting which tricks us into thinking that things that stir us into fleeting calls to action online are just whims, nostalgia, or retro themselves. Or we just forget to make time for fun and connection with our hearts. It happens.

Panic, and, undoubtedly, Ground Control’s new presence as a home for these parties is very good news for our city and needs and deserves a new level of support. So Share, Like, Comment, buy a ticket, and most importantly, GO OUT.

In previous venues, Panic nights have regularly sold out, changed the course of our long winters (a particular The Smiths/Morrissey focus lingers on in memory as a cure for a music travel jetlag-hangover years on…) and has been one of those unsung, underground glues of the fraying fabric of Toronto culture that deserves a lot wider recognition. And all who know something about Panic know that this party exists and survives through a lot of love and effort (and *real life fliers handed out outside music venues in rain, sleet or smoke haze). It’s all retro in only the best ways.

And this reimagining of Robert Smith as Beetlejuice is not only inspiring, funny and a perfect reference, it’s ART!

Autumn has come along rudely with an August slap, but here it is and it’s our time, Alternative music kids of all ages (19+). Our season. Fall reminds us how timeless and slyly cyclical it all is: the best music, the beats we once and foralwaysandever calibrated our own hearts to, the music we fell in and out of love to, still do, the videos that travelled (by boat, kids) to help us find our tribe on faraway shores, much of it underground here, and so, still sacred. What are years, decades, eras in music? Nada. The time is now. Now, as things cool around here and days darken, we come out to play. Spread the word. See you there.

“PANIC is a brilliant evening of new wave, post-punk, classic alternatives, synth pioneers, britpop, shoegaze, madchester, new romantic, classic industrial, ska, and more…”

Ground Control’s GRAND OPENING is Saturday, October 14, 2023, featuring a must-see David Bowie Video Dance Party. What could be more perfect? And so the new venture will be blessed.

Ground Control – 1279 Queen St West – Toronto

Doors 10pm 19+ event

$15 advanced tickets

BUY: https://bowiedanceparty.eventbrite.com

INVITE: www.facebook.com/events/6986820501328587/

Upcoming Panic – Video Dance Party events:

PANIC: 80’s/90’s Video Dance Party w/ PET SHOP BOYS Spotlight – Saturday Sept 30, 2023

Ground Control – 1279 Queen St West – Toronto

Doors 10pm 19+ event

$10 before 11pm – $15 after

INVITE: www.facebook.com/events/320614613627858/

SPELLBOUND Video Dance Party – Thanksgiving weekend (Sunday, October 8^th, 2023):

GOTH / DARKWAVE / POST-PUNK / INDUSTRIAL w/ The Mission Spotlight

Only $5 with ticket from The Mission / Chameleons UK show.

Ground Control – 1279 Queen St West – Toronto

10pm-3am 19+

$10 Cover or $5 with The Mission ticket

INVITE: SPELLBOUND *Long Weekend* Goth Video Dance Party w/ The Mission Spotlight

Halloween PANIC: 80’s/90’s Video Dance Party – Saturday October 28, 2023

Ground Control – 1279 Queen St West – Toronto

Doors 10pm 19+ event

Advanced tickets $15

BUY: https://panichalloween.eventbrite.ca

INVITE: www.facebook.com/events/286042760745682/

For more information follow Ground Contol’s (@groundcontroltoronto on Facebook and Instagram) and Panic’s Facebook pages and the info linked above.

All photos c. Ground Control/Panic.