No Use Crying Over Spilt Beer: The Annandale You Know Died Ages Ago

After the most high-profile saga surrounding a live music scene in Australia in recent years, Sydney’s iconic Annandale Hotel re-opened last night – smelling new, looking different and feeling a million miles away from the era that made its name.

The story is well known by now. Brothers Matt and Dan Rule, rock venue royalty in Sydney, struggled for years to stay afloat in the face of individual but crippling noise complaints and punishing councils. By the time council got on side and the national music industry was beginning to throw its weight around at a policy level, it was too late, the debt too high. The venue closed, developers circled and it was sold.

This is when the Annandale Hotel died.

The Annandale Hotel was bricks and mortar, it was sticky carpets, grimy toilets and good tasting beer pipes – but more important than that was the people. It was the Rule brothers, their relationships with artists and the industry. It was the people who built the infectious atmosphere when The Bronx were tearing the stage to bits, or when Justin Townes Earle bared his soul with just a guitar and a mic to hide behind. When the people left, so did that chapter of the Annandale Hotel.

Only the Rule Brothers could run the Annandale Hotel the way it was.

Only the Rule Brothers could run the Annandale Hotel the way it was.

The bricks and mortar could have become anything. A residential tower, boxes sold as ‘office spaces’, a bad Italian fusion restaurant or, indeed, rubble.

But it hasn’t, the framework of the old Annandale Hotel has become a pub. And judging by last night’s opening night, complete with the smell of fresh paint and the dust from workers’ boots on the new tiles, it’s going to be a good pub.

New owners the Oscars Hotel Group have taken to it with a sledgehammer. The stage is gone (when you enter the pub from the side street, you’re standing pretty much where the stage was) and the venue’s been opened up considerably. From the new stage, which backs on to Parramatta Road (there has been a stage in that position in the past) you can now see all the way to the courtyard as the venue descends from the main bar to the outdoor area.

It’s an impressive looking new pub that has that approachable, community feel that all hotel renovations in Sydney’s inner west strive for these days. It pays homage to the past, with music reminders on the wall and a big tiled ‘AH’ logo on the floor near the Parramatta Road entry. But it probably didn’t need to, because there’s nothing that ties this pub to the old one.

Where the Annandale Hotel of old lived and died by its stage dives and spilt beer, the new Annandale will live or die by its food menu and craft beer selection.

There’s a music offering, but it will be worlds apart from what it was. ‘Front bar bands’ should be able to include it in their rounds of steady venues, and there’ll never be a door charge for punters to see live music. That’s still musicians being employed in a space that could have become anything.

Think of The Standard Bowl – that’s gone from being a dedicated music venue to a room without a door charge that, along with its bowling alley hook, relies on good atmosphere, good drinks and good food and provided a passing trade to bands. And it did this under the guidance of the Rule Brothers.

Where the Annandale Hotel of  old lived and died by its stage dives and spilt beer, the new Annandale will live or die by its food menu and craft beer selection.

We won’t really know for a few months, but based on what we saw last night with the new layout there’s no reason to think the new Annandale can’t be a good pub. It’ll just never be what was on that site before. Good or bad for your personal situation – it’s done now. Wipe up the spilt beer and get behind another venue or three so we're not in the same position again.

And no, the scene hasn’t died. Music will always find a way. If you’re still hanging around the inner west wondering where all the music went when the Annandale closed then, I’m sorry, you’re either unfathomably bitter or were never really part of this scene. Your exact memories of the Annandale, the Hopetoun and the Sandringham may never be repeated, but Sydney’s probably doing better than ever.

Regular nights have returned to the Lansdowne (now owned by Oscars as well), the Newtown Social Club has popped up as one of the city’s best new rooms, Erskineville’s Imperial Hotel has given its basement to live music shows and new small bars are dipping their toes all over town.

And where do those guys hang out? The Vic.

Which Matt and Dan Rule manage. People endure.

The only thing you’ll find that’s the same here is the toilets – they haven’t changed.