Once upon a time, Sydney had a thriving nightlife. I know that might be hard to digest, but it’s true. Sydney used to rule.
Along with the popular red-light district of Kings Cross, we had a smorgasbord of unique venues and nightspots that were scattered all throughout the city; all of which played a huge role in building the careers of many artists that are killing it today such as Flume, Lorde, Flight Facilities and more.
The sad truth, however, is that a majority of these venues are no more. Since the implementation of the lockout laws, venues such as Flinders, Opera Bar, Hugos and Phoenix among others were choked out by the imposing liquor laws and forced to close their doors.
Over the weekend, you may have noticed plaques popping up around the city, surrounding these once thriving venues. Each plaque depicts a memory from a specific artist, reflecting on how that venue played a formative role in their career.
The man behind this is Jonno Seidler, a Sydney based music journalist who wants people to recognise the effect of the lockout laws on Sydney’s culture.
Seidler’s aim is to commemorate the lost venues while putting focus on the slow death of Sydney’s live music scene at the hands of the lockout laws.
“I thought this cultural issue was being lost in the conversation, and I wanted to bring that to the fore” Seidler explained via Broadsheet.
“We made the rule that the artists had formative experiences [at these venues] that led to international success. So either they’d met the other band members, had a residency or played their first show at the venue.”
“The choice of using plaques was a no-brainer. “[We wanted to] do a stunt that uses an object heavily associated with memorials and death; marking the loss of something in a physical way.”
Check out the full list of artists involved below (courtesy of Broadsheet), as well as some shots of the plaques which you can see out on the streets.
Flight Facilities (Piano Room)
Flume (Goodgod)
Lorde (Goodgod)
Anna Lunoe (Phoenix)
Sneaky Soundsystem (Hugos)
Nina Las Vegas (Hugos)
Cloud Control (Spectrum)
Art Vs Science (Spectrum)
Alison Wonderland (Q Bar)
Hayden James (34B)
Bag Raiders (34B)
RUFUS (Club 77)
Peking Duk (Soho)
The Presets (Club 77)
Jagwar Ma (Flinders)
The Preatures (Lansdowne)
You Am I (Lansdowne)
Yolanda Be Cool (Q Bar)
The plaques come just under two weeks after the release of the Callinan Review; a review into the lockout laws with suggestions for improvement that has rubbed a lot of Sydney siders the wrong way. With this, Keep Sydney Open will be hosting another rally on October 9 in response to the review.
Find out more here.
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