How the Melbourne live music institution has survived for 30 years
There’s an unusual smell inside what was once one of Melbourne’s dirtiest music venues.
The stickiness that traps hardened tufts of fiber in the grooves of your shoes is strangely absent, like a phantom limb, and Corner Hotel’s Rod Smith invites a hesitant photographer to lie down on the carpet and frame it.
Fresh, clean, even pleasant.
“This is the best time to lie down, man,” says Smith, the venue’s general manager. “This is a brand spanking; it hasn’t been used yet.”
The band room carpet at the Corner was replaced last week, but it’s the same pattern as always; The swirling gold on deep red is a hallmark of one of the Melbourne institution’s core tenets: consistency.
Over the past three decades, the music industry and the habits of music fans have changed radically. But despite everything, the Corner survived. The question is; How?
“Swan Street has seen a tremendous amount of change and gentrification, so we’ve had to adapt and move with it. But I don’t think what’s driving it has really changed,” says Smith, sitting in a booth next to the front bar.
“I know a lot of bands and tour managers, they know exactly what they’re getting when they come to us.”
The Corner (with its 800-seat band room) is one of the few remaining mid-tier venues in Melbourne’s otherwise fragile live music ecosystem; Here, important places of all sizes survive so that everything does not fall apart.
The latest casualties include Brunswick’s Stay Gold (420-odd capacity), which closed in June after an eight-year run, and Collingwood’s Gasometer (350 capacity), whose sale this time last year sparked a war of words with new management.
Music Victoria data also reveals that the problem is not going away; This spells trouble for up-and-coming musicians who rely on these smaller venues to pave the way for their success.
The organisation’s latest music venue audit found that although there are around 2400 venues in Victoria (more than any other Australian state), the number hosting weekly live shows has fallen by almost 20 per cent since 2019, from 813 venues to 655 venues.
“Just as the sports oval develops elite athletes, venues like The Corner develop the artists, audiences and professionals who run the industry,” says Fiona Duncan, managing director of Music Victoria. “Once these areas are lost, they are incredibly difficult to replace.”
The Corner claims to be a “springboard” for early Australian artists such as Meg Washington, The Temper Trap, Sampa the Great and G Flip, while also introducing international acts such as Leon Bridges, Idles and Fontaines DC to local audiences.
These mid-tier venues are equally vital for heritage groups who maintain solid fan bases but fail to sell out artists like St Kilda’s Palais Theatre.
Pop punk band Bodyjar, who were the first band to perform at the Corner on the venue’s opening night in December 1995, have since played there at least 50 times over the past three decades (as regulars, Smith says, they “will definitely be among the top couple”). They will come full circle with a show on October 1, kicking off a six-week run to celebrate The Corner’s 30th birthday.
The full lineup, announced this week, includes Meg Washington, The Buoys, Kingswood and The Engine Room, as well as founding members of Hunters and Collectors.
“The whole city would be missing out without venues like this,” says Bodyjar guitarist Tom Read.
But while venues are closing under the pressure of rising costs, Melbourne’s music scene continues to evolve and persist. Broadcaster and music journalist Jane Gazzo points to relatively new venues such as Bell City Takeaway and Shotkickers in the city’s northwest as a sign of evolution.
“In the ’90s, Brunswick Street [in Fitzroy] and Richmond; There were venues that were open seven nights a week, and it cost three dollars to see three bands,” says Gazzo.
“The music is still as strong as ever but it is moving towards where the scene is and it is now in the inner west.”
At The Corner, Gazzo says the venue knows its audience and doesn’t bow to the tastes of cover bands. “They didn’t break the formula,” he says.
And at the heart of its identity are people like Georgie Martin, who started working at the venue two decades ago at the age of 19 and now heads the operations team.
He was there when staff tried to barricade the door when Richmond won the 2017 AFL grand final and police had to close Swan Street. He stuck a tea bag label into a glass of whiskey for an American blues artist who wanted the audience to believe he was righteous and short-sighted. He has seen countless people fall in love and watch their idols on stage; He even saw a man climb onto the roof to watch a demonstration, only to be chased across the kitchen by a hand with a broom.
There’s a lesson in longevity for every new player at The Corner: consistency.
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