The Troubadour: 2003-2010

ANDREW MCMILLEN laments last night’s closure of Brisbane’s much-loved The Troubadour, but insists it’s not the beginning of the end of the city’s live music scene. Photos by ELLENI TOUMPAS.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Earlier this year, I interviewed three members of Brisbane alt-rock collective The Gin Club. We spoke of their unique, inclusive style of songwriting and performance, and of the recording process behind their fourth album, Deathwish. They’d taken a different tack for their forthcoming album launch: rather than playing just the one show in their hometown, and booking as big a venue as they thought they could get away with filling, they opted to play three in consecutive nights at The Troubadour on Brunswick Street, in Fortitude Valley. Furthermore, they’d limited ticket sales on each night to just 100, which was approximately half of the venue’s capacity. At the time, no one could have predicted the venue would close within four months.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

Since being established in 2003 by business partners Jamie Trevaskis and Cori Scanlon, The Troubadour had wormed its way into the hearts and minds of everyone involved with Brisbane’s independent music scene, no matter how loosely. Record labels booked showcases there. Practically every band in Brisbane played there at some point in their career. The annual music industry conference BIGSOUND proudly exhibited the room – and the city’s wealth of musical talent – to visiting national and international guests. And music fans could virtually set their watch to the likelihood of seeing memorable, inspiring, worthwhile musical performances there each week, like clockwork, regardless of their personal tastes. The Troubadour was largely inclusive: as long as you weren’t a metal band, there’s a good chance you’d be able to book a show there.

“If you were to bulldoze the Brunswick Street Mall … The Troubadour is the one place you’d want to spare.”

Last week, the truth came out in local streetpress Time Off. Trevaskis revealed the venue’s impending closure was a direct result of long-time disagreements with the building’s owner. “The reason we’re closing down is purely because of the landlord,” Trevaskis told Time Off. “Cori and I both fought for about five months to get him to do any of the necessary improvements to the place – fix the air con that we paid for, and that sort of stuff – and we just got nowhere, so at the end of the day it was just too much.” He described how they lost power to the building for three days during this year’s Valley Fiesta, and nothing was reportedly done about it. To further complicate matters, the business downstairs caught fire a few months ago, which filled The Troubadour’s gutters with ash, and resulted in two weeks of floods. “There’s nothing you can really do when you’re fighting for a lease and you’ve got a building falling down around you.” Despite paying rent every month for seven-and-a-half years without fail – “never screwing anyone around, never asking for anything” – Trevaskis and Scanlon were, according to Time Off, being treated like brand new tenants. Plainly, the situation was unfeasible.

This admission threw a spanner into the works of would-be conspiracy theorists, who sought to frame the closure in a similar manner to the recent demise of venues in Melbourne and Sydney. In those cases, there was a very clear evil to oppose; a twisted machine to rage against. Trevaskis’ frank interview, though, vanquished such imagined threats in one fell swoop. It wasn’t Queensland’s liquor licensing authorities suddenly taking a hard-line approach to Brisbane’s live music venues. Moreover, it wasn’t an attack on original live music at all. Just a dispute between landlord and tenant, and one that couldn’t be resolved.

Sunday night (November 21) was The Troubadour’s last as a functioning live music venue. Tickets for the show were snatched up shortly after going on sale the previous Monday. With the full story revealed, there was less a sense of an us-versus-them, victim-type mentality; instead, the show took on the form of an elongated “thank you” to co-owners Trevaskis and Scanlon. It was a celebration of everything The Troubadour meant to those who frequented the venue over the years. Doors opened at 5pm, and a revolving door of musicians kept the crowd entertained well into the small hours. To briefly return to that interview with The Gin Club; on the topic of limiting their album launch shows to 100 people, Ben Salter confessed he couldn’t stand going to The Troubadour when it’s full. “You can’t see, and you’re stepping on peoples’ toes,” he explained.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

Last night, though, such petty concerns were far from our minds. The mood was jovial. Navigating between the bar and the toilets was a pleasant experience for a change: you couldn’t walk five paces without running into someone you knew. The Gin Club played, of course: nine of them at one point, including a couple of old hands who were associated with the band around the time of the venue’s inception. Seemingly out of respect for the occasion, their set was weighted toward older material. The set was bookended by ‘Wylde Bitch’ and ‘Drugflowers’, which were both given room-wide sing-along treatment. Ben Salter recounted how he, Conor Macdonald, and Adrian Stoyles played the venue’s opening night – “and now we’re playing the last night. But I’m not sad, ‘cause it’s been awesome," he said.

Earlier, Gentle Ben & His Sensitive Side brought rock swagger and blood-curdling screams, courtesy of singer Ben Corbett (“Sorry I’m not jumping around like usual – I’m feeling a little poorly,” he admitted). Ed Guglielmino & The Show showed off clever pop, self-deprecation (“Our career’s over now. But it has been for a long time.”), and their best ‘Wicked Game’ cover (they’ll be lining up for cover band gigs at neighbouring venue RGs now that the Troub’s closed, according to Guglielmino). Blues-rock act Mexico City invited Cori Scanlon to sing back-up vocals for a song; Jamie Trevaskis lent a saw to both Mexico City and Skritch. Fittingly, the quality of music was consistently high.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

What, then, did The Troubadour mean for Brisbane’s live music scene? For many visitors, it acted as a safe haven from the inescapable cover bands and radio-friendly pop music that emanated from neighbouring venues. For as long as I can remember, it has been described as a refuge from the hoardes of leering, face-chewing club attendees. If you were to bulldoze the Brunswick Street Mall – a commonly-expressed desire, as you threaded your way through the drunk, the drugged, the criminal, the homeless, and the violent – The Troubadour is the one place you’d want to spare. Prime though its location might have been, the venue was decidedly outnumbered by its bigger, louder, brawnier co-habitants. If Brunswick Street’s neighbouring bars were aggressive, obnoxious, muscle-bound monstrosities, The Troubadour was a scarf-clad indie kid nervously clutching a tote bag. And that’s the way we liked it.

It takes a certain mindset to continue drinking past 2am on a Monday morning, and last night, I didn’t have it. When I left, the room was still half-full of people relishing the moment; toasting Jamie and Cori (who both remain on bar and glass-collection duties throughout the night); and doing their best to drink the bar dry. Essentially, everyone was simply postponing their final descent of the venue’s staircase.

When I did, it wasn’t with a sense of sadness, but of optimism. So The Troubadour is no more. It’s a fucking shame, no doubt. The lease is up for grabs, though. Undoubtedly, there’s been a few discussions among the local music industry’s entrepreneurs over the past few weeks. Maybe someone else will have a crack. Maybe there’s back-of-napkin sums being sketched out at this very moment. Regardless, it’s not the end of live music in Brisbane: just the end of one of its best venues. Vale.

+

GUEST COLUMN: The Gin Club's Ben Salter on The Troubadour's legacy.

TOMORROW: More photos.