Hydey’s Closure: A ‘Hole’ In Perth’s Scene

With Melbourne and Sydney preoccupied with closures of The Tote and The Hopetoun, respectively, a grubby Perth institution appears to have gone quietly into the night. MATT GILES reports on the precarious future of live music at Perth’s Hyde Park Hotel.

One of the pillars of the Perth music scene, The Hyde Park Hotel, began a hiatus on January 4 that will continue for the duration of a large-scale renovation. Although most of the work will be focused on “The Hydey's” back room, which will be transformed from a bar, stage and bistro into an enormous bottle shop, the electricity for its much loved front bar will also be cut, necessitating its closure, which is estimated to last about nine months. However, there are fears that when the front bar reopens live music will no longer be a feature.

The Hyde Park Hotel is unique in the city for its limited capacity, small PA, floor stage and an interior as rough as its regulars. These conditions made it an ideal launch pad for the careers of many of Perth’s finest including Snowman, Schvendes, Astral Travel and Taco Leg. The Hydey’s “final” show on January 2 was celebrated and mourned by a group of artists who held the venue dear, namely Capital City, Red Jezebel, The Order of the Black Werewolf, the Moonlight Wranglers and Josh Fontaine.

In truth, it’s been a long time coming. In 2006, The Hydey was sold by its former owners the Higgins family, who had run the venue for decades, to the Australian Hospitality and Leisure Group (ALH), the hotels and liquor store arm of Woolworths. In 2007 ALH unexpectedly tried to stop booking live, amplified music at the venue, resulting in an outcry from music fans, the music industry and the WA Minister for the Arts Sheila McHale.

For this reason, and despite unspecific pledges from ALH that live music will return to the front room once it reopens, many interested parties are skeptical, and continue to monitor its developments. Luke Rinaldi, who has booked the venue for nine years, says there’s a possibility the Hydey may return in a different guise not unlike the resurrection of The Grosvenor, a similarly beloved inner-city venue that was closed in the early 2000s.

“Hopefully it will come back, and even if it comes back with a stage, even if some of the old bands don't play there because it has a different vibe, a good thing would be it'd be the closest thing to the return of The Grosvenor,” Rinaldi says “That's if it comes back.”

Rinaldi says comparisons to the closure of The Tote in Melbourne are apt to a degree, but there are significant differences. Where The Tote shut down because of stringent Liquor Licensing regulations and added security costs, The Hydey had been fairly purchased by ALH, who are free to do with it as they wish.

Also, where The Tote's apparent demise is a cultural and historical loss, the Hydey's closure also represents significant infrastructural damage to inner-city live music in Perth. “It's a hole that will be hard to make up for,” Rinaldi says. “Because it was open so many nights a week, and because it had no stage and a small PA, it was the best place to go to for a new band after the rehearsal room.”

The Hydey’s central location – about 1.5 kilometres from the CBD on the corner of Bulwer and Fitzgerald Streets – is also unique. “Its location was just really good,” Rinaldi explains. “Bands will find other places to play, but it'll result in a more diffuse local music scene. There's a real lack of small rooms in the city.”

ALH WA state manager Colin Gourdis did not respond to M+N’s enquiries for this article.

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