Canterbury Commerce Club
Multi-purpose hall at 277 Kilmore Street that served Christchurch folk, rock and community events from 1968 until the 2011 earthquakes. Home to the Christchurch Folk Music Club for many years, with a capacity of around 120.
Venues
C1 Espresso
Coffee shop and informal live music venue at 150 High Street, active from 1996 until the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes. Closely connected to student radio station RDU, which at one point operated a studio from the premises.
Blue Smoke
Live music bar within the Tannery complex in Woolston, opened in 2015 in the former Gustav’s Kitchen space alongside the Cassels and Sons Brewery. One of Christchurch’s more active mid-sized venues.
Wunderbar
Quirky two-room bar built into the hillside of Lyttelton, opened in 1991 by German publican Jörg Schwarz with a distinctly Berlin-influenced interior. One of the port town’s best-loved live music venues.
Quadrophenia
Central city bar that had live shows from local bands such as Future Stupid, Loves Ugly Children, Range, Hawaii Five-O, Creeley, Ape Management, Brother Love, Space Dust, Snort, Squirm, Pumpkinhead and early Salmonella Dub, plus touring groups such as Superette, Nothing At All, and Wendy House.
Located upstairs on the corner of Lichfield and Colombo Streets (though the address is Colombo Street, the entrance was actually on Lichfield) and ran by the Yee family for a few years in the mid 90’s.
#livemusic #christchurch
High Street Project
High Street Project was a long-running art gallery set up as an artist-run, not for-profit project with a particular focus on emerging artists. Housed by multiple venues (in and around Christchurch’s High Street) over the course of 19 years, it also functioned as a performance space for a number of underground or experimental acts prior to the Canterbury Earthquakes of 2010 – 2011.
#nzmusic #artgallery #highstreetproject #musicvenue
Ride On Super Sound
Ride On Super Sound is fundamentally a record store, stocking a wide variety of new and used vinyl along with comics, zines and merchandise as well as being the retail touch point for Johnny Electric Lathe Cuts, offering musicians the opportunity to cut, package and release their own records in a single location.
#recordstores #local #culture #comics #rideonsupersound
Log Recording
Biography Log Recording was a warehouse and studio space occupied by ‘The Henrys’ – i.e. Henry Nicol and Henri Kerr of local industrial / punk / noise group Log Horn Breed (hence the name), plus local punk figurehead Lance Downing,… Read More »Log Recording
Victorian Coffee Gallery
Bohemian Cafe that was one of the very few late night spots in Christchurch during the late 1970’s through to early 1980s. The Clean filmed the music video for notable early single ‘Beatnik’ here in 1982. The Volkswagens played here regularly, along with the likes of The Topp Twins (as 17 year olds!), and various other folk performers.
#nzmusic #nzvenues #theclean #beatnik #thevolkswagons #topptwins
Venus Cafe
Vaguely hippy Cafe on Lichfield street that hosted a number of diverse small-capacity shows in the late 1990s. The Cafe was upstairs from the ‘Lick Er Lounge’ bar and next to ‘Danz Nightclub’.
#nzmusic #christchurchvenues #venuscafe #lickerlounge #danznightclub
Cartel
Cartel was a tiny, hidden away cocktail bay crammed into His Lordship’s Lane, what was (along with the adjacent SOL Square) a very hip art of Christchurch prior to the Canterbury Earthquakes. Run by Johnny Moore there were regular performers just about every night it was open, despite there not being enough room for a stage.
Metropolis / Green Room
Tiny bar upstairs from the well-known Honeypot Cafe that functioned as a low-key performance space under the venue names Metropolis (1990s) and the Green Room (2000’s), before falling victim to the Christchurch Earthquakes of 2010/2011.
Otautahi Social Centre
The Otautahi Social Centre was a mid-sized old hall on Barbados Street in Central Christchurch which ran for a couple of years as an All-Ages-Friendly live music venue.
Being an unlicensed youth center, there was no bar or much in the way of formal organization, just a space set up with a small PA system, a few couches and a small kitchen and toilets out back. On occasion some kids would bring alcohol to shows (it was even openly endorsed at some punk gigs), but generally things got along in a friendly, community-orientated kind of way.
Al’s Bar
Mid-sized venue on the South side of Central Christchurch operated by long-time fixture of the Christchurch music scene – Al Park. Al had been a notable figure in the pub rock and (eventually) punk music that sprung up around the Mollett Street performance space in the late 1970’s, but it took until 2004 before Al had a venue of his own.
Glory Hole / Hex Central
The scummiest, most rundown, but welcoming and communal venue in Christchurch. Had 2 lives – first as Hex Central (under Squirm’s stewardship) in the mid 1990’s, then as the punk head quarters dubbed The Glory Hole, from 2009 till it’s demise in 2011.