Auckland's oasis of cool

A young Nathan Haines. Photo / Supplied

You probably heard it before you saw it, as the bass reverberated along High St. When you got there, if it was winter, there might be clouds billowing up the steps, a combination of the smoke machine and the heat hitting the chill night air.

Then it was through the heavy wooden doors with the big brass handles and down those steps - anything from 12 to 25 of them, depending on whose memory is the most reliable.

At the bottom you went straight on to Box, a dark, sweaty room with a pounding sound system, or left to Cause Celebre, whose resident bands featured such local luminaries as Peter Urlich, Greg Johnson and a young Nathan Haines.

It was the hottest spot in Auckland, which made it a playground for visiting VIPs like U2, Janet Jackson, Ian McKellen and Harvey Keitel.

Box/Cause Celebre was the brainchild of friends and club promoters Simon Grigg and Tom Sampson.

Inspired by a New York venue called Nell's, they decided to open a semi-sophisticated members club playing jazz in one room and a raw underground dance club in another.

They started with one room, Siren, which opened on December 12, 1988.

It was soon renamed Cause Celebre, and supplemented by Box, which opened in the old RSA next door.

If you were a visiting star, it was an oasis of cool. If you were one of the many regulars, it was a second home.

"I suppose, looking back, it could have been commercial suicide because New Zealand was very conservative," says Grigg. "But you don't think about it like that. You just do it and hope that someone likes it."

Sampson's wife Ann ran Cause Celebre with a firm hand, while junior partner Kevin "The Hat" Hewson was bartender to the visiting stars. "Bono was really nice because he and I drank Stoli [vodka] together," says Hewson. "Mind you, he had an eye for my girl I was working with at the time."

One of Sampson's favourite memories is the night Mick Jagger turned up. He tried to get in free but the doorman, Riseti, told him he could afford to pay the $5 cover-charge, so he paid.

"He walked down the other end of the room and I looked around and all of a sudden there was nobody there," Sampson says.

"There was everyone pretending to be cool down the other end of the room."

Welsh crooner Tom Jones bought girls Moet. Rapper Ice T lay on the floor singing My Funny Valentine. Hollywood A-Lister Harvey Keitel was there pretty much every night for weeks, during the filming of The Piano.

Grigg admits it was "pretty full-on down there sometimes.

"Any band that came to town used to end up down there. We had nights where there would be Hall and Oates at one end of the bar and David Soul at the other."

But while it attracted A-listers in the same way as the legendarily debauched Studio 54 in New York, Box/Cause Celebre's main focus was always the music.

"We knew we had the best music in town," says Grigg. "We were always quite cocky about that."

The glory days lasted until the late 1990s when Sampson offloaded his share to Grigg, who soon sold up altogether.

But the club's legacy is strong and will get a timely boost with a 20th anniversary reunion on Saturday, held elsewhere because the original venue remains closed.

Grigg is proud the club inspired so many careers and friendships.

"You could see these young musicians and young DJs coming through which we really encouraged so there was a sense that what we were doing had some value."

The Box/Cause Celebre reunion at the Studio, Auckland, June 27.