Making room for great musical memories

Fortitude Music Hall’s partners aim to fill a gap in Brisbane’s live music scene.

Fortitude Music Hall co-owners John Collins (left) and Scott Hutchinson with performers Tia Gostelow (second from left) and Patience Hodgson at the new 3300-capacity venue in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen.

In recent months one of the great pleasures of John Collins’s life has been to grab a set of keys and unlock the door to an unfinished building on Brunswick Street Mall, in the centre of Fortitude Valley.

After a couple of after-dark glasses of wine with friends and family members, he has led them into a vast, silent space that will soon become a new home for live music in Brisbane.

After showing his guests inside, Collins has routinely been rewarded with wide-eyed and open-mouthed reactions to the Fortitude Music Hall, as every detail of its insides and out have been weighing heavily on his mind for some time.

Tonight, the venue’s opening concert will include performances from indie pop band Ball Park Music, rock trio DZ Deathrays and singer-songwriter Tia Gostelow, as well as a string of guest appearances from the likes of Bernard Fanning, Dave McCormack, Thelma Plum and the Grates singer Patience Hodgson, who is also hosting the event.

Since the last notes of These Days rang out at the Brisbane Riverstage in 2010, when multi-million-selling rock group Powder­finger called time on its two-decade career with a final public performance, bass player Collins has reinvented himself.

In November 2014, his foray into the nuts and bolts of live music operations began when the Triffid opened its doors in New­stead, a neighbouring inner-city suburb whose population has swelled with mushrooming apartment buildings.

Set inside a curved-ceiling hangar, the 800-capacity room — which includes a small mezzanine overlooking the stage — quickly became a well-respected venue for artists and audiences. “I’m really happy with the Triffid,” he tells The Australian. “If I wasn’t happy, I probably wouldn’t have been able to move on to the Fortitude Music Hall. It took a while to grow, but I think it’s doing exactly what I hoped it would be doing.”

The room behind the door that Collins has been quietly unlocking for his friends in recent months, though, is four times the size, with a capacity of 3300 patrons. For the bassist, the bigger budget has brought greater expectations and the pressure to get it right.

“I’ve always had a bit of self-doubt,” he says. “I’ve never expected anything to go according to plan, and I think that’s a healthy thing. With the Fingers, from the early days, we never had any expectations because they always got crushed very early in the piece.”

As with the Triffid, Collins has partnered with Hutchinson Builders for the $43 million construction project inside a building whose former use was as an Optus call centre.

Last financial year, the company’s turnover was $2.7 billion, while the group returned a before-tax profit of $37.53m.

Chairman Scott Hutchinson is an avowed music fan who regrets not buying the 4000 capacity inner-city indoor arena Festival Hall when he had the chance. In 2003, it was sold to make way for an apartment building. “I struggled to imagine Brisbane without Festival Hall — but I had to,” Hutchinson says. “Now, I can’t imagine my life without the Triffid — and when this place opens, I think people will say they can’t imagine Brisbane without Fortitude Music Hall.”

Although he describes this building as a “disaster commercially, in the short term”, Hutchinson is instead focused on fostering the city’s live music culture, with a long-term view that its central location will mean that thousands of gig-goers will spend more time in the Valley after a concert, rather than heading straight home. “It doesn’t have to always be about money for Hutchys — it’s a private company,” he says.

“I was born here, and I want to help Brisbane.”

As well, Collins and Hutchinson are again partnering with Powderfinger’s former manager, Paul Piticco, co-chief executive of multi-pronged music company Secret Sounds, which has interests in major festivals, artist management, publicity and record label Dew Process.

“One of the uniting reasons between JC, Scott and I wanting to do something together again is our firm belief in the Brisbane music scene, and wanting to give something back,” Piticco says.

“Obviously we want to have viable businesses, but we want to put another rung on the ladder for the next generation of bands.”

As well as that trio, the new building has resulted in a new collaborator in Live Nation.

The American entertainment giant is on board as a full financial partner, a business decision that arose from Live Nation’s existing stake in Secret Sounds, which oversees festivals such as Splendour in the Grass, Download and Falls Festival. “I think venues are a big part of where Live Nation sees itself,” says Piticco. “For the same reasons we do, they just like the idea of having the spaces that these things happen in.

“They were thinking the same way as us: Brisbane needs a room of this size, and hopefully all promoters will see that gap in the market being filled, and put their acts in the room.”

Upcoming bookings include American psychedelic rockers the Flaming Lips, British metalcore band Architects, Indonesian rapper Rich Brian and Australian performers Kasey Chambers, Hermitude and the Cat Empire.

As with the Triffid, the focus with the Fortitude Music Hall is on delivering a high-quality experience for the audience, which means an emphasis on acoustic engineering, lighting and multiple sight lines, on the floor and on the mezzanine.

Behind the scenes, the artists’ green rooms are designed to feel spacious and homely, while road crew will be mightily relieved to discover that a semi-trailer can be driven directly underneath the venue to load gear in and out.

These are the sorts of telling decisions that can be made only by people with a deep understanding of the live music business. In response to this suggestion, Piticco points the finger squarely at Collins.

“When I was manager of Powderfinger, JC was the guy in the band who … I wouldn’t say he’d break my balls, but he’d have his moments of pernicketyness,” Piticco says with a laugh.

“They toured Australia and the world in all size venues, and he would notice things like there being too many stairs at load-in, or not enough towels, or backstage rooms were dirty, or they could have been more generous with the rider, or the person that met us at the door was grumpy …

“When the time came with the Triffid, he knew exactly what to do because he’d seen the best and the worst of venues around the world.”

Ahead of his newest project opening its doors to a few thousand Brisbane music fans, Collins takes a seat near the foyer bar and attempts to cast his mind into the future. What does he hope this room will do for the city?

“I’ve got 15 year-old daughters, and a 12-year-old,” he replies. “I want this to be here for them in 20 years, and just like when I saw bands like the Black Crowes at Festival Hall, I want people to have fond memories about this place. I want it to be an asset for Brisbane.”