News of fresh additions to Australia’s live music venue is roster is always welcome and the coming months will see the launch of not one, but two new venues.
While Melbourne is facing the loss of the Palace Theatre as venue operators await action on the promised government protection against noise complaints and Sydney aims to revive the city’s ailing live music scene despite oppressive lockout and curfew laws, up north Brisbane is looking to the bright side of life.
Quite literally, with the introduction of The Brightside, the latest addition to the Queensland capital’s cultural hub in Fortitude Valley. Located at 27 Warner Street (the current site of Electric Playground), The Brightside will, in the words of its operators, “provide a home for alternative music fans in Brisbane.”
The Brightside is described as: “a multi-purpose venue, with a refurbished band room featuring a brand new sound rig,” along with a renovated beer garden that will feature local DJs, on the venue’s Facebook page. The team behind the new bar are the same of fellow Valley live music hotspot The Alhambra Lounge, namely Destroy All Lines and The Fans Group, and the operators have a pretty straightforward plan for their new bar. “A multi-purpose venue, with a refurbished band room featuring a brand new sound rig…”
“I hope we don’t fuck it up,” Ben Turnbull of Destroy All Lines tells The Music, while Jess Barbera of The Fans Group jokingly adds, “I hope it goes heaps good.”
The Brightside will open its doors on Thursday 1st May with an official launch party set for Saturday 3rd May, featuring US band The Acacia Strain headlining a large night of festivities. The venue is aiming to run events seven nights a week, but will begin with opening on Thursday through to Saturday, and the occasional Sunday.
Other bands set to help usher in the new Brisbane venue include Straight Arrows, Kisschasy, King Parrot, The Getaway Plan, Hands like Houses, Kim Churchill, Origin, Cartel (acoustic), Morning Harvey, Mindsnare, and more. Full details will be announced on The Brightside Facebook page. The 1,500 capacity building will be put out to tender and could be used for music and “live shows like MTV Unplugged.”
Back down in Sydney, a historic theatre in the suburb of Newtown is set to re-open as a live music and arts space sometime in June. Appropriately named The Hub, the King Street theatre is currently undergoing a $500,000 renovation courtesy of The Vlattas family, the latest in their string of venue restorations as Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Family spokesman Chris Vlattas tells SMH that following the refurbishments, the 1,500 capacity building will be put out to tender and could be used for music and “live shows like MTV Unplugged.” Or louder, considering the family have trumped for costly soundproofing so that operators can host live music without fear of coming under fire by neighbouring residents’ noise complaints.
Mr Vlattas adds that the space could be used by a theatre company, much the same way the Vlattas family’s recently renovated 350-cap Cleveland Street Theatre has been used a comedy and theatre space by The Chaser’s Giant Dwarf. Chris and Dimitri Vlattas say they are next turning their attentions to restoring the 1,500-seated Marina Picture Palace in Rosebury to re-open as a live venue.
The news follows shortly after the official live music launch of the Newtown Social Club, the Sydney venue of Melbourne’s Corner Presents team, which christened its 300-capacity bandroom over the weekend and now has a healthy schedule of gigs booked for the coming months.
Forthcoming shows feature the likes of Dallas Crane, Dustin Tebbutt, Ed Kuepper, Hiatus Kaiyote’s Nai Palm, British India, Little Bastard, Northeast Party House, and more – full details at http://newtownsocialclub.com/
(Photo: Katelyn Rew. Source: Kingswood @ Electric Playground Gallery)
