It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since The Foundry opened its doors and gave the burgeoning Brisbane music scene another lively home. A pulsing, musical party hub, The Foundry’s focus has always been on creating good vibes all round – at the bar, in the crowd and on stage.
While The Foundry has played host to some of Queensland and Australia’s most promising up-and-coming acts, the venue’s upstairs studios also house some of the State’s prominent music industry personnel. The Foundry isn’t just another live music venue, it’s a supportive, creative network – a trend venue booker Patrick Balfe says sets the Brisbane music scene apart.
“The fact that we have so many awesome venues so close to each other in the valley as well as the fact that we all kind of work together and we have events like BIGSOUND really make Brisbane unique,” said Patrick.
“Brisbane’s music scene is up there with the best in Australia. To see bands like Violent Soho, Dunies, DZ, Jungle Giants and Cub Sport, to name a few, go from strength to strength is amazing. And to see younger groups like Zefereli, Clea, Good Boy and Bugs start building names for themselves is also really exciting.”
With plans to continue collaborating with like-minded entities, The Foundry’s second year will see them keeping things fresh and interesting. To celebrate their first year in business though, we asked Patrick to take a trip down memory lane and share some of The Foundry’s finest moments from the past twelve months. Here’s what he had to say…
THE FOUNDRY’S FINEST MOMENTS
- Halloween 2015. Jeremy Neale did his EP launch and Amy and the staff all got dressed up in awesome costumes and decorated the venue like a spooky haunted house.
- Tony Hawks Pro Skater Tribute. It was amazing how many people came and how excited everyone was about the concept. We even had a Swedish blogger called “ice bears forever” get behind the night and advertised it on his youtube channel. We had people playing the game on playstation one and people getting photos on a quarter pipe that we purchased for the night.
- Bigsound 2015. Was only a couple of weeks after we first reopened and it was awesome to see so many locals and interstate people excited by our venue, we were packed out both nights and had awesome musicians like Ngaiire, The Ocean Party and Mesa Cosa. It was a great test run for the venue.
- Our staff Christmas party. We all went to the bowls club in Hawaiian shirts and made great life choices.
- Opening Night. When Velociraptor almost broke the floor on our original opening night in March 2015.
- Mountain Goat valley crawl and Blurst of Times. We love working with our mates at the Brightside, Black Bear Lodge and The Zoo on multi venue events and showcasing all of the amazing talent that we have in Brisbane and interstate. Both of these events were hugely successful and punters came down early to check out the earlier bands on the line-ups.
The Foundry’s first birthday celebrations kick off this Thursday night, 18 August from 8PM. So grab your mates and help them eat their birthday cake! All event info is available here.
