Cherry Bar
The Cherry Bar is a Melbourne city bar founded in 2000 by former Cosmic Psychos drummer Bill Walsh. Appropriately located on ACDC Lane (off Flinders Lane between Russell St and Exhibition St), the bar threw out existing artists studios in the building to make a rock music venue and has become a popular concert after-party venue for touring bands and their crew.
Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher was so taken with the bar during the band's 2002 Australian tour, he made an offer to purchase it.[1]
In the early 2000s punters were brought to Cherry through its Deep Funk nights on Wednesdays with John Idem, hiphop Thursdays, and the consistent rock n' roll weekend nights. Currently, Thursday nights is Soul night, while rock from all genres and eras is played on weekends by founder Bill Walsh, Max Crawdaddy,[2] Rock DJ Paul Miles,[3] and Little Scotty.
Although inaccurately reported by Melbourne's Herald Sun that the building was destroyed by fire on 5 June 2008, it was in fact the offices located in the floors above which burned, whereas the Cherry bar, being located in the basement of the building, suffered only water damage. The bar was expected to reopen following two weeks cleaning and restoration of the electricals damaged by the water used in the fire-fighting effort [4] but building complications delayed the re-opening until New Year's Eve.
As regulars of Cherry, rock band Airbourne reference the bar in the lyrics of their song Fat City: "Midnight bite at the Cherry, so sweet is the juice." Melbourne-band Jet also drew upon their many long nights spent at the bar as an influence for their song Rollover DJ.
References
External links
- Cherry Bar at MySpace.com
- Review published in The Age accessed 19 September 2006
Coordinates: 37°48′56″S 144°58′16″E / 37.8156°S 144.9710°E