Help Save Melbourne's Iconic Cherry Bar

23 July 2014 | 10:29 am | Staff Writer

The power is yours, gig-ateers

Long-standing Melburnian venue and veritable institution the Cherry Bar has made a public plea to its gig-going public to contribute to a crowdfunding campaign to help save it from potential closure.

In a statement from the venue today, Cherry Bar owner and booker James Young divulged that a new 12-storey, 189-apartment residential development on Flinders Street, near the bar’s AC/DC Lane premises – “with its north-facing balconies frowning down upon us,” Young evocatively explains – is scheduled to start receiving residents from August, which raises the risk of noise complaints and, consequently, being shut down should anyone file the first such grievance against the Bar in its 14-year history.

In order to reduce the likelihood of that happening, Cherry Bar is undertaking a pretty extensive – and expensive – renovation in order to bring the venue up to scratch in terms of noise-level compliance.

It’s a pretty full-on process, including the creation of a two-door soundproof entrance zone, backing brick wall behind the stage, and double-glazing all the windows, so understandably the iconic independent locale is turning to the community for a hand to see it through.

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Orchestrated via crowdfunding platform PledgeMusic, the Save The Cherry Bar campaign has been set-up to enable the Cherry faithful to spare some cash for live music, with a slew of scalable rewards up for the grabbing. PledgeMusic itself has even agreed to comp all transaction fees and will donate 5 per cent of the campaign’s income to the cause.

As Young explains: “Punters who choose to help save rock’n’roll and Cherry Bar will be given a wide selection of items to ‘purchase’ (prices range from $18 to $5000) including T-shirts, stubby holders, bumper stickers, named ‘bricks’ in the soundproof wall and medallions for annual and life-time free entry to Cherry Bar. There is also a seven-track digital EP featuring donated songs from seven of Cherry’s favourite Australian bands – Drunk Mums, Child, Hits, F*ck The Fitzroy Doom Scene, Matt Sonic & The High Times, Dead City Ruins and Palace of the King, all of whom regularly grace the infamous Cherry Stage.”

Young acknowledges the inequity of parties who are having change thrust upon them by larger, more powerful corners being expected to foot the bill, and laments the necessity of turning to the public for aid, but says “I’ve sat through dozens of well intentioned meetings that go round and round in circles without ever providing a solution for the poor threatened live music venues”.

“The conclusion I’ve come to is…to avoid confrontation is the best course of action: to soundproof Cherry so we are compliant and beyond reproach and above complaints from our new neighbours and can 100% stay alive and continue to support live music.

“This is what must be done and in order to do it, we need help, we need your help. Please help us save rock’n’roll. Please help save Cherry Bar in AC/DC Lane. Thank you.”

The Save The Cherry Bar campaign has presently reached 23 per cent of its stated goal; 41 days remain for the project to meet it.