Rockers rally to save Collingwood music venue The Tote Hotel

Tim Rogers and Amyl and The Sniffers are among the high-profile musos supporting a grassroots campaign to save Melbourne’s iconic rocker pub.

Local rockers are rallying to save iconic Collingwood music venue, The Totel Hotel.

Our homegrown rock gods are on a riff to save The Tote Hotel.

Owners of the live-music Collingwood institution called “last drinks” in early March, announcing they were selling the business and the pub.

Co-owners Jon Perring and Sam Crupi said the stresses and strains of navigating The Tote through the pandemic left them with “no petrol in the tank.”

Not fronting up with staff superannuation was also making headlines.

But any thought of The Tote rocking on as the grungy venue whose back bandroom has hosted everyone from The White Stripes to You Am I went up in ciggy smoke with an asking price of $6m-$6.6m.

Fears the venue would be lost to developers led the owners of a local punk dive to start a grassroots campaign to buy the pub.

Tim Rogers said if Melbourne lost The Tote, it wouldn’t say a ‘hell of a lot of us as a town’.

What started as a harebrained idea after one too many jars has gained momentum with the support of artists such as Tim Rogers and bands Amyl and The Sniffers and Hard-Ons.

“Melbourne is one of the five greatest rock’n’roll towns in the world,” Rogers said.

“If we lose a pub like The Tote it doesn’t say a hell of a lot about us as a town.”

The Last Chance Rock ’n’ Roll bar co-owner Shane Hilton told Page 13 he and partner Leanne Chance wanted to preserve The Tote as a live music venue.

“It’s not about fame or fortune, it’s not about the sex or the drugs, it’s not even about the rock ’n’ roll,” Hilton said.

“It’s about the music. And The Tote is a place that makes that music possible. It’s iconic.”

The pair has already donated half of the money needed to save The Tote, “going into a s--tload of debt to banks, family, and using our own meagre savings”.

“It is, and I say this with no qualms, the most important live music venue in Australia,” Hilton said.

“To lose it to developers, or to people who don’t understand the significance of The Tote and its place within our community would be a devastating blow to music, not just in Melbourne, but around the world. It needs to be saved.”

Expressions of interest close on Thursday and a crowd-funding campaign has reached $500,000.

Built in 1870, the legendary Collingwood pub has had many incarnations and became a haunt for rock and garage groups including Dead Moon, Brian Henry Hooper, Roland S Howard, Mudhoney, the Dirtbombs, Spencer P Jones, Paul Kelly, Violet Soho, the Drones, Jet, Spiderbait, Courtney Barnett and countless more.