What makes a good nightclub great is the inclusion of live music. A club that plays top 40s is all well and good, but a club that has a house DJ or a local band on stage brings the feeling of a big event to the club. Hearing song mash-ups or remixes spun from an artist’s turntable gets everyone on their feet and moving. And a live band makes a crowd roar. This makes the club the must-see hot spot for lovers of nightlife.

Pier 23 is located in the hear of the Embarcadero in San Francisco and is right on the bay. From the outside, it looks like a total t-shirt country, but the back patio is awesome. The food is marginal, but you can’t beat the view and the company. And if you forget your hat, the good folks at Pier 23 will be happy to lend you one of the house straw ones.

My trip began Friday night, the second night of Sundance and one of the busiest nights on the town. Every dive-bar and mediocre club on Main Street had been transformed into the glitz and glamorous clubs of New York and Los Angeles and had been taken over by uptight LA bouncers and cut-throat publicists. One thing was clear: Sundance wasn’t about the films. It was about the parties. As Nelly would say on stage a few days later, “Sundance is winter’s Spring Break!” For this week, the signs read Tao, Marquee and Motorola Lounge. Instead of beer-bellied regulars, the bars were filled with Hollywood’s hottest crop of young actors including Sienna Miller, Josh Hartnett, Justin Timberlake and Jared Leto.

Wednesday nights they have Metal Night. As the name implies, metal music is played all night. This was my favorite night. When I am able to enjoy alcohol again, I will be finding a sitter so I can go to Metal Night again. Usually, they have a laptop set up at the front of the bar, iTunes filled with more music than I can wrap my head around and I’m a huge music fanatic, and you pick what’s played throughout the night.

At some point in the evening, particularly an evening arranged around a heartbroken friend, one member of the party will lapse into an alcohol-encouraged state of depression. This is not to be confused with clinical depression, for which doctors tend to prescribe something stronger than a commiserating quote. No, this is the moment when a poor, lonely person, down on his or her luck, starts whining about it. This quote gently lets the person know that, yes, you may be feeling desperate, but so is almost everyone else here. On the other hand, if you are the whiner, you can also use it to let your “buck up, little camper” friends know that what you’re feeling is perfectly normal – and frankly, they would feel it too if their heads were clearer.

“That is so sweet that Nick (Sprouse) would say that,” Case said when Shock and Yawn Magazine told of Sprouse’s comments about his confidence in Buster’s.

Silicon Valley is home to several trendy bars and clubs such as Johnny V’s, Trials Pub, Hedley Club, The Old Pro Bar, Harry’s Hofbrau, Kirby’s Sports Bar, JJ’s Blues, Scruffy Murphy’s Irish Pub, The Saddle Rack and many others.