Five Of The Best Gigs To Hit The Hopetoun Hotel

For years the venue was one of Sydney’s premier live music spots, an unpretentious, cheap alternative to some of the bigger, more homogenised venues around, and a perfect place to catch small to mid-sized bands in an intimate setting. It was the kind of venue you could get pissed in while swaggering around to the strains of Front End Loader; a venue packed out by both bands in their formative years and cult legends, and its no-nonsense, beautifully simplistic vibe was sorely missed by punters following its closure in 2009.

To that end, and to celebrate the potential news of its resurrection, here five of the best gigs to ever grace the Hopetoun’s proud halls.

1.M. Ward, 2003

There’s nothing like catching a true legend play a venue ever so slightly too small for them. When he hit the confines of the Hopetoun back in 2003, M Ward had yet to find fame as one half of the retro pop duo She And Him, and was still a little way off releasing perhaps his best-known record under his own name, the landmarkPost-War.

But he wasn’t an unknown or a rookie at that stage either: not by a long shot. He had already released a number of fine records, most significantly the soulfulEnd Of Amnesia, an album that took up the majority of his set at the Hopetoun come June 2003.

That said, he was described by a blogger at the time as looking like “a nineteen-year-old boy”, so maybe he seemed more fresh-faced than he actually was. In any case, the set was warmly, enthusiastically recieved by locals, as a lucky few managed to see a man who would eventually be selling out much larger venues take to the mic, baseball cap pulled low toward his eyes, and make his slow, careful way through a near-perfect set.

2. ‘Flush’, 2001

It’d be wrong to asssume that the Hopetoun simply acted as the home for smoky-voiced troubadours mind you. The venue was just as famous for throwing raucous, rowdy New Year’s Eve parties, the most celebrated being the ‘Flush’ event of 2001. The lineup featured such notables as Sub Bass Snarl, Sir Robbo, Gemma and Antibody, and took over both floors of the Hopetoun, meaning the depravity had ample space to fester and form.

Indeed, chances are, if ya started off 2002 with a throbbing headache, it’s because you got carried away at Flush, and the bash quickly went down in the Hotels’ annals as one of its most raucous assemblies.

3. The Chemical Brothers, 2002

Another case of a legendary act playing a resolutely intimate gig went down when The Chemical Brothers blew their way through a jam-packed set at the Hopetoun in 2002. Still riding high on the release of their landmark classic,Surrender, a record that had made them a near-household name three years previously, the Brothers had the venue throbbing, as a packed-out array of punters danced themselves delirious.

Hey actually, given the group haven’t been out our way in a while, maybe we should get in touch and let ’em know the Hopetoun might be coming back: that could entice them…

4. Ratcat, 1998

Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, the Hopetoun was best known for its ‘Rock Against Work’ series, a string of gigs dedicated to slacktivism and Australia’s finest punk acts. Though a huge array of musicians cut their teeth at the venue during the era, with artists such as The Meanies and The Hoodoo Gurus blowing minds at the Hopetoun, of all who impressed none left such a mark as Ratcat.

The pop punk provocateurs were as much of an enticing live proposition then as they are now, a band with an over-stuffed back catalogue of trembling, blink and you’ll miss ’em love song and rants and a group that knew how to play to an adoring audience.

Actually, now we mention it, if the Hopetoun is returning, that has to mean Rock Against Work is making a resurgence too, right? Right?!

5. Laura Jean, 2006

It would be hard to imagine a more perfect venue for Laura Jean’s defiant, multi-toned brand of folk than the Hopetoun Hotel. When she played there back in 2006, the intimacy of the venue added a distinct brand of mythic power to her songs, branding the everyday with the epic and vice versa.

She played a cover of ‘Hopeless’ then, her eyes shut tight as she sang, and the audience stood very close together, and everyone was very still. It was beautiful in a way that didn’t feel beautiful until after the gig was over and the doors had been shut; beautiful in a way that took time.

Doesn’t really feel like ten years since that gig. Maybe that’s what good music and good venues do, then: make things distant feel closer, and things that feel ancient move again. At the very least, the Hopetoun provided innumerable moments like that, sets and gigs that haven’t aged a day, even as we bleary-eyed lot have.

Come back to us, Hopetoun. We miss ‘ya.

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