Whiskey Au Go Go a portal to different era

Flared jeans for $2.50, Moreton Island land for $8000 and a brand new car for $3169 - welcome to 1973 Brisbane and the days of our darkest mass murder.

The black and white pages of the broadsheet Courier-Mail are a time portal back to 1973 Brisbane.

Advertisements boast the sale of cutting edge technology like fax machines and photocopiers. There’s a full page ad for Monroe calculators.

Blocks of land at Moreton Island are selling for a cool $8000 and you can score a brand new Mazda RX3 for $3169.

A Myer ad promotes flannelette shirts for $1.50, a roll neck skivvy will set you back $2.99 and flared jeans $3.50.

A Myer advertisement in The Courier-Mail at the time of the Whiskey Au Go Go fire in March 1973.

A story in The Courier-Mail in 1973 at the time of the fire that killed 15 people.

A news story reveals Queensland Police officers have been awarded a pay rise - a first year constable will now make $169.95 a fortnight and a senior sergeant $287.90.

The Whiskey Au Go Go fire was lit shortly after 2am on February 8, 1973 – too late to make it to print in that day’s Courier-Mail – the cover price then just six cents.

But by February 9, it was unsurprisingly front page news.

“Police question man on fire” the headline reads, a black and white photo of the nightclub engulfed in flames sits below it.

There are thousands of words of copy detailing the fire and the events that follow it – an inquest has resumed only 12 hours after the fire is extinguished, politicians are calling for a parliamentary inquiry and the identity of all 15 victims is revealed.

Front Page Friday March 9 1973 Whiskey A Go Go Fire.

The front page of The Courier-Mail on March 10 1973 following the Whiskey Au Go Go fire that killed 15 people.

The front page story also reveals that interstate detectives with knowledge of southern crime bosses are en route to help investigate – one of whom turns out to be one of the country’s most infamous crooked cops Roger Rogerson.

The cop turned killer was found guilty of murder in 2016 and is now serving a life sentence in prison.

He was called to give evidence at the modern-day inquest last year – sensationally swearing to tell “everything but the truth, so help me god” at the start of his evidence.

Among the motives for the fire reported in The Courier-Mail in the days that followed were theories it was a “grudge attack”, a stand over tactic from southern criminals, or a protection racket.

Fifty years later, many of those early-days theories are still being considered by a mammoth coronial inquiry tasked with finding out what really happened at the Whiskey all those years ago.