Pulling the plug on music vibe
IT’S bloody typical, isn’t it?
Just when I finally snag a girl who shares my raging passion for competitive yodelling, the Cairns noise police declare war on anything louder than a muffled sneeze.
Something is seriously wrong when all it takes is a couple of whingeing wowsers to fire up their grump glands to get live music banned from a pub.
The Bungalow Hotel is the latest victim of the complaining crowd, forced to pull the plug on its once-aweek live shows because someone who chose to live near a pub has sensitive ears.
Another venue erased from the rapidly shrinking list of spots to catch a gig, and one more nail in the coffin of what was once — and could be again — a city with a vibrant and creative nightlife.
This whole state of affairs is a disgrace.
Vance Fahey from the Barbary Coasters had his show at the Bungalow cancelled last night, but this crusade against fun is about more than just one band.
More and more, new pointless rules are popping up to stifle any entertainment and self-expression that has not been state sanctioned.
The Bungalow Hotel could risk it, get another complaint, then be forced to jump through all kinds of hoops and pay an arm and a leg for the honour, but come on. None of this is necessary. These guys breathed new life into a rundown pub and attracted a growing crowd of regulars to their gigs once a week, on a Friday, from 6.30-10.30pm.
Not exactly an all-night rager, but now everyone suffers because of some boring moaner. Musicians are out of work, the pub has to cut back on shifts because Friday night entertainment is no more, and my romantic yodelling partner will probably leave me and Cairns for an eight-foot-tall baritone warbler named Bastien with a delightful log cabin in the Swiss Alps.
Don’t kid yourself, people do lose jobs because of this nonsense.
The Barbary Coasters will celebrate their 29th birthday as a band in November.
The husband-and-wife duo managed to eke out a living for 26 of those years but with a dwindling catalogue of pubs willing to go through the absurd amounts of red tape needed to get a live music licence, they have been forced to drop back to “semiprofessional” for the past few years.
Playing in a working band is not slouching.
It is, or was, a legitimate career requiring a huge amount of dedication, talent and hard work to make ends meet. The punters appreciate the effort. Sinking pints over live tunes is one of life’s simple pleasures, except apparently for those dried-up old carps who have the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation on speed dial.
The aforementioned band got its name from the Barbary Coast, the moniker given to the wharf-side drinking precinct of Cairns in the 70s and 80s.
I was just a pup when its heyday finally ran its course, but the gnarled old blokes of Cairns tell tales that would make your toes curl.
This was a wild place where wharfies, sailors, canecutters and harddrinking officeworkers would all come to get rotten drunk, maybe get in a blue, and punch down durries til their eyes turned yellow.
Live music was blasting from pubs all down the circuit, every single night of the week.
It sounds romantic, but that kind of lawless free-for-all is obviously not a good fit for modern Australian society — and it doesn’t have to be.
But surely we can let bands play in pubs once a week, not on a school night, when they wrap up at 10.30pm.
We are even at the point where a dirty great big music festival planned for the Cairns CBD will be monitored for bad language after someone let fly a few choice words at last year's event.
Is anyone really offended, or do we just like complaining about things?
At this rate, unlicensed yodelling will be a hangable offence by Christmas.