The resurrection is over. St Jerome’s The Resurrection that is, the reincarnation of Melbourne institution St Jerome’s has announced that it will be shutting its doors in less than two weeks as the lease on the building has expired.
The announcement was made today on the venue’s official Facebook, with publicans Jerome Borazio and Danny Rogers revealing that the venue will be going into hibernation while they plan their next reincarnation, writing:
The end of the lease brings the end of an era for St Jerome’s – The Resurrection.
You have been SO good to us, East Brunswick, but after Sunday 21st April, it’ll be time for us to close our doors on this location and go into hibernation.
Show the staff, bar and beer garden big love over the next few days and come on in for a farewell beverage and help us drink up the stock! We’ll be announcing details of our Sat 20th “Going Away Party” here soon.
St Jerome’s fans needn’t worry, you know that we are already planning our next incarnation… the only question is where will we Resurrect next?
The closure is fitting given the original St Jerome’s shut its doors in 2009 when its lease also expired, thanks to the billion dollar refurb by Myer, after what felt like a lifetime but was only a mere five years of operation.
But in that short half-decade, St Jerome’s and Caledonian Lane in Melbourne’s CBD became an indie mecca where hipsters flocked like moths to the flame. Although hard to imagine these days, the little bar was also the site of the birth of what has become one of Australia biggest music festivals, Laneway Festival.
First came the St. Jerome’s Summer Series each Sunday afternoon in 2004, featuring ‘new’ bands of the time like The Presets and Architecture In Helsinki; next it extended to include a monthly Saturday night called Brains (which was actually a residency for The Avalanches, who turned the little bar inside out).
Still not satisfied that they were doing enough, one night Rogers and Borazio convinced The Avalanches that they could close the lane, remove the bins, and throw a proper laneway party. The Avalanches’ mate Monkey quickly made up a poster, they asked a few friends to play, and so began the annual St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival. “You have been SO good to us, East Brunswick, but after Sunday 21st April, it’ll be time for us to close our doors on this location and go into hibernation.”
1,400 people attended the first ever Laneway, and since that fateful day in a back alley, the festival has quickly developed into a national touring event now present in each of Australia’s captial cities, expanding to New Zealand, Asia and, most recently, to Detroit in the United States of America.
“The bar spawned a music festival [St Jerome’s Laneway Festival] – which is now in seven cities and three countries. In some ways, it was simply a stroke of good luck and good timing, but like the bar and the enduring friendship I have with Jerome; we didn’t plan for this, and these days, nothing ever really surprises,” Danny Rogers said at the time.
“Our ride has been bumpy and never boring, but watching Jerome fight some pretty ordinary humans to keep his favourite little bar open made me realise how lucky we were that St Jerome’s ever opened in the first place.”
St Jerome’s closure is just one of a few for Melbourne lately. In the past six months alone we’ve seen Geelong icon The Nash being forced to close due to ‘structural instability’, Thornbury’s The Prague cancelling all future shows due to a ‘difficult economic climate’, and Smith Street’s Blue Tile Lounge closing after six years of music servitude.
On the bright side though is news of new live music venues opening, including Level 2 in Northcote, the eccentrically titled The Rare And Reclusive, Oft Neglected, Lesser Spotted Mallard beginning operations earlier this month, and the resurrection of North Melbourne’s Public Bar by owners of fellow live music hot spot, Fitzroy’s Old Bar.
There’s a silver lining to be found in the live music capital of Australia, with 2012 seeing the opening of Melbourne’s newest (most eccentrically titled) live venue, with The Rare And Reclusive, Oft Neglected, Lesser Spotted Mallard (or the catchy acronym TRARONLSM) beginning operations earlier this month, along with North Melbourne’s Public Bar, which is being resurrected by owners of fellow live music hot spot, Fitzroy’s Old Bar, after rescuing it from the market as a potential residential development.
