Penrith nightclubs: Panthers, Daily Planet, The Venue part of history |Full list
Heady Wednesday nights at The Daily Planet and hitting one of the Panthers clubs like Reactor 1 and the Evan were the glory days of Penrith’s nightlife. Check out the photos from way back when.
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It was the ’90s and you probably sported keppers or a halter neck top. Whatever you wore, it didn’t matter because the bass was always thumping at nightclubs from Colours at St Marys to Penrith Panthers.
While most suburban night spots have shut their doors, there were always more options to party close to home up until the mid 2000s.
When the megalithic Panthers “world of entertainment” emerged in the early 1990s, along with the aqua golf and other drawcards, the Evan and Reactor 1 nightclubs were magnets for nocturnals who no longer needed to head to Parramatta or the city for a night out.
Reactor 1 turned into the Minx and the Vault.
Then there was the Evan auditorium, which later became the Evan Theatre.
It was the No. 1 spot at the foot of the mountains on a Saturday night where you might see Freddy Fittler or one of the Panthers bust a move, maybe to the MC Young song of the same title.
At Dominique’s Cocktail Bar, a DJ spun retro tracks but the nightclub scene.
And the punters didn’t have to wait to the weekend to let their hair down.
High St landmark the Daily Planet, in the Penrith Hotel, drew a crowd on uni student nights each Wednesday, and many would flock back on a Friday and Saturday for commercial dance hits.
One memory it would rather forget is being linked to a meningococcal outbreak in 1996.
If you were more into R’n’B, Colours in St Marys Band Club never struggled to get pumping.
For “high NRG” dance fans, The Venue at Penrith had plenty of cred back in the ’90s.
Resident DJ Tommy Rodrigues - aka DJ Tom-E - hit the decks at Penrith for six years, flitting between The Venue and Oxford St clubs between 1996 and the mid 2000s.
With guest DJs including Alex Cave, Nick Skitz Rob Brizzi, Rodrigues called The Venue the “prestige club of the west”.
“Back in the day it was the club to go to. (It was) simply euphoric, not in the drug way but it was a sense of people there were all about the houndog clothing, people were there for the music so it was more like when you were part of a clubbing society.’’
Highlights for the 43-year-old Greystanes DJ, who still plays raves, was the Wild FM broadcast parties with DJ Sam Gee.
“Wild FM had this huge amount of people listening to the radio station and we went live broadcast, basically all the DJs that played there that night were broadcasting live on radio so there were thousands and thousands of people listening to The Venue nightclub on that night,’’ he said.
He still sees Wild FM gen Xers at today’s events.
“There’s nothing compared to what we had back in the day,’’ he said.
“Back then there was a lot of clubbing music so more and more promoters decided to open clubs to cater for this music or this genre of music.
“Once that music started dying off, especially with this younger generation, they don’t know much about clubbing. They know more about going to events.’’
Tne haunt that continues to have staying power is O’Donoghues Irish Pub at Emu Plains, which gives locals a fix of the night life with bands and a DJ on Friday nights.
The Peachtree Hotel also has some endurance after entertaining gen Xers and Millennials. In 2014, reality TV star and Kim Kardashian’s stepbrother Brody Jenner put “the Peachy’’ in the spotlight for the wrong reasons when he snubbed fans at the paid Penrith gig.
In November that year, the Penrith Press reported how he failed to live up to expectations for fans who forked out $65 to meet Jenner and have a photo with The Hills star, who Lost & Found paid $US12,500 to show up to the venue.
Instead, the then 31-year-old was intoxicated, drinking out of his shoe, and refused to meet fans.
Comedian Rob Shehadie would recall when clubbers were spoiled for choice in the ’90s and his generation was “conditioned’’ to go out more.
“I was thinking about this not long ago,’’ he said. “The young people have nothing to do.
“They go to the casino and strut around and they sit around restaurants.
“In the old days there were clubs everywhere.
“It was nice, it was good to go out and have a drink but there were options everywhere. You’d go all the way to Maroubra Seals, you’d go all the way up to Patrick’s, you’d go to Key Largo at Terrigal, Club Troppo at Gosford. There was always somewhere to go.
“I think it’s the bar scene now.’’
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