Australian Venue Rating System

Over the next little while I will be reviewing all the venues that I have performed at this year. These reviews will generally fall at the end of my blogs and are designed to help other musicians, audience members and bands to make decisions on where to hold a gig or whether to go to a gig. This will then continue on to me rating everything. The idea came to me during the tour I’m currently on. Touring days are filled with a lot of time wasting. The sound check happens at about 5 and then you are usually sitting around in the venue until you play at 11 and then more sitting after the gig till about 2 when you leave for the hotel. In that sitting time you look at all the band posters on the wall and I have begun to give them a score out of ten – scoring both the posters and then also the band. I will post those ratings at a later date which will help you decide on whether to download their albums for free or not cause you’d be stupid to actually buy a CD these days.

Here is the list of venues I have played at this year that will be rated.

The Speigeltent, MELBOURNE VIC
The Powerhouse – BRISBANE, QLD
Clarendon Guest House, KATOOMBA NSW
The Heritage Hotel, BULLI NSW 

Bathurst Theater
The Metro Theatre – SYDNEY, NSW
Joes Waterhole – EUMUNDI, QLD
The Brass Monkey Cronulla NSW
Lake Kawana Arts Theartre– CALOUNDRA, QLD
Mullum Music Festival. Civic Hall - MULLUMBIMBY, NSW
Ruby’s in Belgrave Melbourne
The Peninsula Lounge – MORNINGTON, VIC
The Corner Hotel – MELBOURNE, VIC
The Governor Hindmarsh hotel– ADELAIDE, SA
The Bakery – PERTH, WA 

Fly By Night Musicians Club – FREMANTLE, WA
The Loft – WARNNAMBOOL, VIC
The Palais – HEPBURN SPRINGS, VIC
Republic Bar Hobart
Northcote Social Club Melbourne
Bennetts Lane Melbourne
Q Bar/Spectrum – Sydney
Tabu Nightclub – Brisbane
Pony Melbourne
45 Downstairs Melbourne
Revolver Melbourne
The Tote Melbourne
Transit Lounge Melbourne
Pure Pop Records Melbourne
Trades Hall Melbourne
Bar Open Melbourne
Point Cook Shopping Center Victoria
Birmingham Hotel Melbourne
Noise Bar Melbourne
Sydney Warehouse Parties
The Grand Prix Melbourne
303 Melbourne
Federation Square Melbourne
La Mamma Theartre Melbourne
Federation Square Melbourne
HiFi Bar Melbourne


Because this is the first I will review four this time. Feel free to add your own comments if you have any experience.



The Speigeltent, MELBOURNE VIC
While this joint has all the history of a Charlie Chaplin silent movie and seems to attract crowds by itself, the staff, while desperately trying as hard as possible to make us believe they have been teleported from the era the venue was originally built, are a little “to cool for school” while having no cool at all. Once was great now is tired but hey it's old isn't it.
No free drinks for the band loses this slightly desperate venue marks

5/10

Clarendon Guest House, KATOOMBA NSW

Fantastic The staff are exactly what you want from staff at a guesthouse – they are kind of like your Uncle and Aunty for the night, they give you anything you want, put you up for the night in their antiquated, ghost infested guesthouse, free drinks, dinner and breakfast the next morning, all the food tastes slightly strange but you appreciate the effort anyway, the stage has red curtains, is there anything more that needs to be said

9/10

The Heritage Hotel, BULLI NSW 

Weird, hard to like even though I want to.
The staff here are trying very hard because they know they have to.. they are living on the outskirts of Wollongong for goodness sakes. Actually because they live on the outskirts of Wollongong it gives them slightly more credibility. The women who run the joint are hard nosed, all of them and they are the ones in power. You would have to be hard noised to be a female running a pub on the outskirts of Wollongong. The sound guy used to be an overly energetic pleaser but about a year ago he started to date one of these hard noise women who manage the place and appears to have had all the life driven out of him
Bed bugs in the rooms
4/10

Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Center
As far as community theaters go (and they all go exactly the same) it’s OK. Unfortunatley they named the place before looking at it and left out the key component of memorability. Being Bathurst this is not the center of entertainment we all know that is instead a car racing track.
4/10