Pebble Bar

Pebble Bar (also commonly called "Pebbles Bar") was Singapore's iconic and most well known gay bar during the 1970s and first half of the 1980s.

Location of Pebble Bar, at 585 Orchard Road, Singapore 9.

Location

Pebble Bar was located on the ground floor of the Hotel Singapura Intercontinental.

Affectionately referred to simply as "Pebbles", it was located to the left of the ground floor forum of the now-demolished Hotel Singapura Intercontinental, 585 Orchard Road, adjacent to the Hilton Hotel.

The construction of the hotel was completed around 1963 to 1965 as part of the Singapore government's plan to turn Orchard Road into a tourist belt. The plan proved to be a roaring success and the Hotel Singapura Intercontinental played a key role in this.

Hotel Singapura Intercontinental became the Hotel Forum before it was replaced by the present Forum Galleria building.

Close-up of the main entrance to the Hotel Singapura Intercontinental. Pebble Bar was towards the left of the atrium.

Customers walked into Pebble Bar predominantly via the main entrance adjacent to the hotel coffee shop fringing the lobby but, very conveniently, there was also a more discreet entrance from the car park at the rear of the hotel.

Tania

Main article: Tania

Alban De Souza, lead singer of Tania, gyrating supine on the stage floor during a performance. (Photo: Jan Vreeman, 1979.)

In the early 1970s, it became patronised largely by the English-educated, upper-strata gay men of Singaporean society who formed a nexus which enticed other gays to congregate there.

Pebble's main draw were the live performances of a local band, Tania, whose lead singer, Alban de Souza, was decked out in glitz, painted his face a la David Bowie, or KISS but with red makeup instead of black-and-white, and entertained with flamboyant, energetic camp.

He attracted a loyal following of English-educated, gay men from the upper economic strata of society and they formed a nexus which enticed other gays to congregate there.

Guitarist Zulfikli Sutan ("Zul"), band leader of Tania and Singaporean music legend.

Gay European expatriates and visitors also frequented the nightspot and many a local-Caucasian pairing was spawned. The clientele could watch Tania’s performance, socialise and get to meet new friends.

Although it was the only one of Singapore's first 3 gay bars to have a dance floor, albeit a rather small one, same-sex dancing was strictly prohibited. The bouncers would stop any gay couple from doing so. Some gay bars of that era displayed white signs which read, "No man and man dancing" (sic).

Needless to say, the Western visitors were more daring than the locals and would sometimes dance alone in front of the stage when Tania was performing while nobody else dared to.

Today, the gay community takes same sex dancing for granted but it is important to bear in mind that this was not allowed until the early 1980s. So gay people sat in one half of the bar drinking and listening to the music, while watching the straight couples dance in the other half. However, it was a common sight to behold men embracing and giving each other air kisses, a phenomenon rarely witnessed elsewhere in Singapore but which raised nary an eyebrow at Pebble.

Competition

Pebble Bar became less popular as a gay venue later in the early 1970s when Le Bistro starting to attract more of the gay clientele, although it never completely plunged into oblivion as a meeting place. It experienced a resurgence in popularity when Le Bistro closed down.

Closure

Pebble Bar closed prior to the impending demolition of the Hotel Singapura Intercontinental in 1986.

See also

• Singapore gay venues: historical

References

• Roy Tan, "Photo Essay: A Brief History of Early Gay Venues in Singapore"[1] in the book "Queer Singapore - Illiberal Citizenship and Mediated Cultures" edited by Audrey Yue and Jun Zubillaga-Pow, Hong Kong University Press, 2012. ISBN 978-988-8139-34-7[2],[3],[4],[5],[6],[7],[8].

• Russell Heng's article on Yawning Bread, "Where queens ruled! - a history of gay venues in Singapore", August 2005. [9]

• Russell Heng's article archived on Yawning Bread, "Tiptoe out of the closet: the before and after of the increasingly visible gay community in Singapore", June 2001.[10]. This paper was originally published in the Journal of Homosexuality Vol 40 Numbers 3/4 2001 Special Issue - Gay and Lesbian Asia: Culture, Identity and Community, edited by Gerard Sullivan and Peter Jackson, pp 81 – 97.

• Neal Prince, InterContinental Hotel Corporation Digital Archives, Singapura InterContinental Hotel, Singapore, Malaysia (1963-1986)[11].

Acknowlegdements

This article was written by Roy Tan.