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Christchurch Earthquakes 2011

The Civilians feature in Canta, September 1998. The band performed at Players and Hustlers during 1998.

Players and Hustlers

Players and Hustlers was a pool bar and live music venue at 96 Oxford Terrace on Christchurch’s The Strip, hosting DJ nights, rock, and metal acts through the late 1990s — including a Judgement Day dance party in 1997, a Brutal Truth show in 1998, and performances by The Civilians and Gaia. The building previously housed the Player Tenpin Bowling Centre, largest in New Zealand in 1995. The venue was demolished following the 2011 Canterbury earthquakes; the site is now the Riverside Market.

State Trinity Centre

The building at 124 Worcester Street was designed by Benjamin Woolfield Mountfort and opened in 1875 as Trinity Congregational Church, whose congregation included suffragist Kate Sheppard. Converted to the State Trinity Centre in 1975 — a theatre, bar and restaurant — it hosted The Axemen’s landmark recording session for Three Virgins before earthquake damage in 2011 closed it for over a decade. It reopened in 2023 as The Church Brew Pub, retaining Mountfort’s famous double barrel vault ceiling.

Isaac Theatre Royal

The Isaac Theatre Royal at 145 Gloucester Street is the only surviving operational Edwardian theatre in New Zealand. Opened in February 1908 to the designs of architects Alfred and Sidney Luttrell, it has hosted everyone from Anna Pavlova and Louis Armstrong to the Rolling Stones, Split Enz, Crowded House, and Lorde. Heavily damaged in the 2011 earthquake, it reopened in November 2014 after a $40 million restoration and holds Heritage New Zealand Category I status.