The nuffies at Hillsong Cult have done the dirty and purchased a historic live music venue for their future gatherings (for $23 Million, god loving/tax free, dollars mind you), unfortunately, that venue is Melbourne's iconic Festival Hall... and live music fans have all come out in hoards expressing their distaste of the idea.
A lot of us are unsure about the future of Festival Hall hosting gigs, especially on Saturday evenings or any night prior to early morning masses the next day etc and the availability of renting the venue for gigs is uncertain, especially in terms of what they'll charge in terms of fees and the types of bands they'll actually allow to perform inside now that they own the power.
It's also been revealed that staff knew about the purchase of the venue for a while now and unfortunately, no future employment opportunities were created for them to keep their jobs moving forward with the new mob, so you can assume that a new way of running the venue will be enlisted and things won't be the way they were before the sale... We're bummed and absolutely gutted for all the staff involved in this, especially with 2020 delivering massive blows to the industry already.
https://twitter.com/whatsuptanny/status/1320223894607785984
Last night I asked the metal community to come out of the shadows and talk about the heaviest, god hating bands that they've seen playing the stage at Festival Hall, just so the owners know what they're getting themselves in for and the relationship these punters have with the infamous landmark...
https://twitter.com/brownypaul/status/1320316502331981824
Luckily for us, the fans didn't miss a beat when it came to discussing the bands they were lucky enough to catch behind Festival Hall's sacred doors:
https://twitter.com/itsgotscottt/status/1320318632832892928
https://twitter.com/60Pollock/status/1320415482319548416
https://twitter.com/_shmick/status/1320319261894569984
https://twitter.com/CroweRobcrw44/status/1320317672991719425
https://twitter.com/SimonValentine1/status/1320316857421762561
https://twitter.com/MetallicaMarli/status/1320321668758188034
https://twitter.com/sadboidtd/status/1320318222378229760
https://twitter.com/AwesomenessSCC/status/1320318278833631232
https://twitter.com/fullgut/status/1320540066926661632
https://twitter.com/KjDraven/status/1320549756628652032
https://twitter.com/7RockLists/status/1320550796883230721
https://twitter.com/Seeker_Eleven/status/1320574581615194112
One of our favourite shows and memories of the venue was catching Iggy Pop celebrating his 72nd Birthday in April last year which featured a surprise appearance by Henry Rollins. Relive that coverage here and if you're on Twitter, go join the conversation and we'll add more of your stories to the article as they come through!
*Note: The views expressed in this article reflect that of the writer, me, Paul 'Browny' Brown and not of the contributing staff of Wall of Sound.
Words and anti-religious views by Paul ‘Browny’ Brown @brownypaul
