Zanzibar

Details

NOTE: This post probably contains quite a few errors and an inaccurate timeline – there is very little info online about old Christchurch venues, so I welcome all corrections and additions!

Also known as: Old Star Tavern, Star Tavern, Lion Tavern

Location: 343 Lincoln Road, Addington

Current Status: Demolished

Active as a live music venue: 1980’s

People of Note: Tony Peake (Zanzibar, 1983-4), Chris (Anzak?) (Burning House Promotions at Old Star Tavern, 1986? – 1987?)

Capacity: –

All-Ages: No

Biography

The Old Star Tavern (aka The Star Tavern, Lion Tavern) was a large old pub on Lincoln Road in Addington, not far from Hagley Park, that sprang to life with live entertainment during the mid-1980s.

Circa 1983–4, local punk and dance impresario (and general taste-maker) Tony Peake was responsible for booking bands at the large, popular Gladstone venue, alongside Al Parke. Peake was a significant figure in the Christchurch music scene: an Australian who had arrived from Adelaide in 1975, he had fronted the city’s first punk band The Vandals in late 1977 and gone on to lead The Newtones — whose 1981 EP reached number 13 nationally — before turning his talents to club promotion. He had built a reputation as a tastemaker working the record counter at Canterbury University’s bookshop, importing records and connecting the city’s music community.

Meanwhile, up in Auckland, Peter Urlich (Th’ Dudes) was establishing the original Zanzibar dance-club — one of New Zealand’s first post-punk dance clubs — and was planning a similar spot in Christchurch with the help of local proprietor John McCarthy, who owned the Old Star Tavern.

Peake was brought in to establish a new nightclub within the pub, taking the same name as the Auckland venue and putting on regular nights from late 1983, DJing a mix of Post-Punk, Dance, Dub, Hip-Hop — whatever he saw fit. Saturday nights at Zanzibar in The Old Star Tavern shook with the latest hip-hop and electronic dance floor hits; Peake described the club’s mission as offering a “stable alternative” to other venues that “chop and change so much.”

We spent a lot of time making sure it had a great stereo… through his connections through University Bookshop he was importing records to play. He’d bring all sorts of records in. We used to have special nights, we used to go down to this factory and get skins, giant bits of polystyrene and we’d paint big pictures, like pop art and put up big lights. For the 60’s night we did a giant Emma Peel pop art for the girls’ toilets. We did one called the Waterfront Night, which Tony particularly enjoyed. We hired all the scaffolding in town and a dance group danced up there. We made friends with these transvestite performers and they would do acts in between the shows.

-Christian Carruthers, from The Christchurch Press Obituary of Tony Peake.

Peake would eventually bounce back and forth from Sydney, before starting up The Edge nightclub on Hereford Street in the 1990s, where he gave emerging acts including Dark Tower and Salmonella Dub a helping hand.

Later on, one-time Solatudes bassist Chris (Anzak?) began putting on shows as Burning House Promotions at various spots around town, including the University Student Association, as well as gigs like those featured in the poster below promoting The Max Block and The Terminals. The money raised by these shows was in aid of Audio Access, an 8-track studio that had started up on Bedford Row and captured music for the likes of All Fall Down, Tall Dwarfs and The Terminals themselves.

History

• 1983: Tony Peake ran the venue as Zanzibar
• 1986?: Burning House Promotions start booking shows at Old Star Tavern.

Links

• The Christchurch Press Obituary of Tony Peake
• Tony Peake — AudioCulture