Festival Hall Brisbane visiting acts through the decades
As its spiritual successor opens across town in Fortitude Valley, we remember the legendary Festival Hall that brought a steady stream of top artists to Brisbane.
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FESTIVAL Hall was nothing more than a glorified tin shed.
From the street, its brick facade and butterfly roof hid its utilitarian interior, rows of side stall seating and wide, wooden dancefloor. It was basic, but brilliant.
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It had its own distinctive smell (a musty aroma of stale sweat and a million spilt beers), bum-breaking metal seats, and it was insufferably hot in summer and cold in winter.
For a shed, the sound was epically loud but perfectly balanced – and there wasn’t a dud seat in the house.
It first opened in 1910 as a boxing arena called Brisbane Stadium. It was razed, rebuilt and renamed Festival Hall in 1959, again primarily for boxing and wrestling, but they soon fell out of favour as spectator sports when TVs made their way into loungerooms. It was on TV that Aussie teens witnessed Elvis Presley and the birth of rock’n’roll.
Festival Hall’s owner, Stadiums Ltd, was run by Melbourne identity John Wren. It had venues in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. With boxing knocked out cold, the rise of rock’n’roll was the company’s saviour.
Many of Australia and the world’s best music acts graced the Festival Hall stage in the decades to come.
When The Beatles played in 1964, they say you could barely hear the band over the screams.
Led Zeppelin, U2, Bob Dylan, Nirvana, The Jackson Five, The Eagles, R.E.M., Bob Marley, Elton John, Fleetwood Mac, Radiohead, Coldplay… the musicians who performed at Festival Hall read like a list from the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame.
Michael Franti and Spearhead drew the curtain on six decades of Brisbane music history with the final ever gig on Saturday August 9, 2003.
The owners sold Festival Hall to an apartment developer. It was demolished on January 24, 2004 – the day the music died.
But what makes Festival Hall such a rich part of Brisbane’s cultural history – and a lost treasure up there with Cloudland and the Bellevue Hotel – is the memories.
First gigs, first dates, stolen kisses, rock’n’roll epiphanies and drunk nights forged in song all live in the consciousness of Queenslanders.
Anyone who went to a gig there has a Festival Hall story.
Few people charted the history of Festival Hall better than former News Queensland music writers, Noel Mengel and the late Ritchie Yorke.
On the day of that final Michael Franti concert, Mengel interviewed John Wren (Jnr), who ran Festival Hall.
Mengel recalled how Wren served his apprenticeship at Sydney Stadium before arriving in Brisbane to manage Festival Hall in 1972. He started with a bang – his first show was Led Zeppelin, with tickets just $3-$5.
Despite witnessing hundreds of concerts around Australia, Wren was convinced Festival Hall crowds were the nation’s best.
“I’ve seen a tour here and in Melbourne and Sydney and the reaction is different,” Wren said. “I don’t think I’m biased. Part of it might be that the further north you go, the more friendly people are. Part of it is this venue, which has a terrific atmosphere with 4000 people. It’s the audience that lifts the artist.”
Ritchie Yorke said the demolition of Festival Hall saw our “favourite place of worship destroyed”.
“Oh sure, the hall was an architectural monstrosity, but as a repository of dreams it has no peer in all of Queensland,” Yorke wrote.
Another to share memories of Festival Hall as the wrecking ball swung was Powderfinger frontman Bernard Fanning, who saw his first gig there at age 13.
“It was Duran Duran, a matinee show,” Fanning said. “I was in town, playing pinnies … and they were giving out free tickets because there was hardly anyone there. We were completely blown away – the volume, the lights, were dazzling.”
In the lead-up to the opening of “the Fort” tonight, a few Brisbane music lovers have shared their favourite Festival Hall moments.
When Foo Fighters played in 1998, Dave Grohl showed his rock cool before playing a note. As he walked on stage, a bottle was hurled at his head, which he promptly caught and pocketed, before he started strumming his guitar without blinking.
Or the whole of ’98, when epic shows by Radiohead, The Prodigy, Beck, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Massive Attack and Portishead rolled in one after another.
In 1992, just as Nirvana took grunge global, they arrived in Brisbane to play Festival Hall as support to Violent Femmes. The show quickly became a double-header.
Or the transcendental Jeff Buckley show in 1996, when the power cut out and he performed Hallelujah a cappella.
The Who in ’68... Iggy Pop in ’77... R.E.M. supported by The Go-Betweens on the Green tour in 1989.
Or 1996, when Brisbane bands decided to stay put and make a scene, leading to Regurgitator, Custard, Powderfinger, Pangaea, Kiley Gaffney and SixFtHick owning Festival Hall.
Thousands of gigs, millions of songs and countless memories.
Vale Festival Hall. Long live The Fortitude Music Hall and fresh memories to come.
The biggest acts to play Festival Hall: The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, U2, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Nirvana, The Go-Betweens, Powderfinger, Michael Jackson, Carlos Santana, The Eagles, R.E.M., The Everly Brothers, Shirley Bassey, The Beach Boys, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Johnny and the Hurricanes, The Bee Gees, Neville Brothers, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Jackson Five, Ella Fitzgerald, Bob Hope, The Who, Suzi Quatro, Eartha Kitt, Skyhooks, The Prodigy, Vera Lynn, Billy Joel, The Cruel Sea, Cat Stevens, Fleetwood Mac, Silverchair, Neil Diamond, Talking Heads, Elton John, The Easybeats, Cold Chisel, The Sex Pistols, No Doubt, The Dixie Chicks, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Foo Fighters, Alice Cooper, Regurgitator, T. Rex, Slade, Duran Duran, Custard, Ozzy Osbourne, Rock Steady Crew, Coldplay, Massive Attack, Ben Harper, XTC, INXS, Green Day, Johnny Cash, Culture Club, Status Quo, The Living End, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Jeff Buckley, Hoodoo Gurus, Jethro Tull, Portishead, Faith No More, The Stone Roses, Public Enemy, Bay City Rollers, The Models, David Essex, Blondie, Alanis Morissette, The Angels, Iggy Pop, Violent Femmes, The Black Crowes, Spandau Ballet, Joe Jackson, The B-52’s, Run DMC, Split Enz, Ramones, Sonic Youth, Soundgarden, Jane’s Addiction, Moby, Bjork, The Chemical Brothers, Kamahl, The Cure, The Stranglers, PiL, Beck, The Sunnyboys, Suicidal Tendencies, Alice in Chains, Morrissey, Counting Crows, Tool, Devo, The Dead Kennedys
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