Possibly the best music venue in Barcelona?

Be interesting to see if anyone can come up with a better live music venue in Barcelona than the Sala Apolo - http://www.sala-apolo.com/ . It complies with pretty much everything you're looking for in a music hall. Its dark, smoky*, sells beer, is downtown, old (well 1946), small and best of all it's round. The roundness meaning you always get a good chance of seeing your heroes on the stage.

This year we have been delighted by, amongst others, the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra and The Zombies (and yes Colin Bluntstone still has THE voice). And next week some Scottish kids are playing there - The Teenage Fanclub or something like that.

OK the beers are not cheap, but that just makes the queue at the bar shorter and there are plenty of cool bars in the Paralell area to check out pre and post-concert.

If anyone remotely interesting is playing there I would defintely recommend taking your camera along to take pictures of the venue, especially when the lights come on.

* They are going to try bringing in the no smoking ban again in January. Hmm, we'll see.