The Bendigo Hotel is calling time, bowing out with a stacked final month of shows and a big farewell party.
The Collingwood venue confirmed the news across its socials, revealing the Bendigo Hotel will throw its last-ever party on 29 August. Dubbed the Bendi Bday Blowout, the closing bash brings together Nembutolik, Jack Harlon & The Dead Crows, Uncle Geezer, Religious Observance and Non, with the Doom Saloon crew and host JROC handling DJ duties until close.
Krispy’s will be dishing up food from early in the night, and the whole thing lands at the venue’s Johnston Street home.
The Bendigo Hotel’s final shows
- 8 August: Carcinoid launch their Ruins from the Crematorium EP, with Reekmind and Aglo, presented by Black Oceans Media
- 9 August: Earl Gray, Vollie, Secondhand High and Chute
- 12 August: Buck Dancers Choice for Western Wednesdays
- 13 August: Jump the Fence, The Red 40 and Twisted Fix
- 14 August: Escarion, Pendle Hill, Gull and The Incantus
- 15 August: Poltergeist9000, LXRP and Equestrian Fields
- 20 August: Coma Toes, Decode Island and Mangione
- 21 August: Art as Catharsis showcase with Ghost Smoker, Convulsing, Black Aleph, Brian Campeau and more
- 22 August: upstairs show, 5pm doors
- 29 August: Bendi Bday Blowout closing party, 125 Johnston Street, Collingwood, doors 7pm
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The Bendi has been part of Collingwood’s fabric for more than 150 years, first opening its doors in 1871 as the Collingwood Arms.
Carlton Brewery snapped up the corner pub in 1887 and gave it the Bendigo name, before demolishing the original two-storey building in 1911 and replacing it with the striking structure that still stands on Johnston Street today.
The heritage bones have long framed a room better known for what happens inside it, with the venue building a reputation as one of Melbourne’s essential homes for heavy, loud and underground music.
Melbourne’s home of heavy music
Before the doors close for good, the Bendigo Hotel is cramming its remaining weeks with a run of mostly local bills that spans heavy music, punk and plenty of noise in between. The calendar takes in EP launches, weekly residencies and a sprawling all-day showcase, building steadily towards that farewell blowout. It caps a busy final stretch for a room that rarely sat quiet.
The closing schedule leans firmly into Melbourne’s underground, with metal, hardcore, grind and experimental acts filling most of the bills. Among the highlights is Carcinoid marking the release of their Ruins from the Crematorium EP on 8 August, alongside a wide-ranging Art as Catharsis showcase on 21 August that pulls together around 10 artists from the heavier and stranger ends of the spectrum.
The Bendigo says tickets are shifting fast, so anyone hoping to catch the closing run or the send-off itself will want to move early. Either way, it brings the curtain down on one of the neighbourhood’s hardest-working live rooms.
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