Her Majesty's Basement, the live music venue and one of brisbane's longest running metal clubs, underneath the hilton, has been closed down. apparently, the hilton want to get rid of the "black shirt people", so we don't scare their rich clientele away
originally, the PA was going to be moved to Club 299 in fortitude valley, a venue normally associated with the emo/hardcore crowd. it's an upstairs club, accessible only via a narrow stairway, where bands would have to carry their equipment up and down, and then along the mall to wherever they could get a park, as 299 has no loading area either
the manager seemed good enough at first, and after having some local gigs organised there, started being rude as fuck to the people trying to help him out, and was making noise that he was the only alternative venue in the city, had all the bands under his thumb, and that he could "police and control" the metal scene
well. fuck that.
a massive effort from Geeks (of brismetal.com and Malaclypse fame) and Scott (from Minus Life) has seen a struggling and quiet club Brisbane Underground on rowes lane (within sight of the hilton!) strike up a mutually beneficial partnership with local metal
comprising a loading area, ground-level access, capacity expandable from 400 to 700 (the basement was 500), and a manager who has managed an alternative scene before, Jan 6th 2007 sees the opening of CLUB PHOENIX as the new home of brisbane's local live music scene
this venue fits in perfectly with the needs of all us metalheads, and already has a slew of awesome gigs booked up for the next several months including daysend, empyrean, the dead, astriaal, apex null, biolysis, rishathra and SO many more
check out more info here
http://www.myspace.com/clubphoenixbrisbane and if you're in brisbane, support this awesome venue and your local metal scene, and get your ass to skinny's to buy a ticket before they're all gone!
