Old Bar

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Old Bar

Fitzroy, VIC

The Old Bar

The Old Bar has long been a shrine to local music and has live music seven nights a week.

Get your fix of local indie, punk, rock and funk groups, some cutting their teeth to a live crowd for the first time. As long as you don’t mind rubbing shoulders with the odd ‘local’, the Old Bar is just about the most unpretentious atmosphere you can get. Grabbing a pot at the bar, you have a diverse choice of seating before you. From chairs and tables that may have come from a state school sale, couches possibly obtained from the local Salvos and a few bar stools at the front of the bar, the possibilities are endless.

Live music seven days a week – one of Melbourne’s only establishments that can boast this

Famous for their extended happy hour, which includes $15 jugs of Unicorn lager from 3-9pm Monday to Friday

Infamous for their $10 ‘mystery shot’ … which includes ingredients at the discretion of Joel and the bar staff

You can also check out Melbourne’s most comprehensive guides to the best bars and pubs in each suburb and street here.

The Old Bar are throwing a huge Zoom party to help keep the venue alive

Tucked away on Johnston Street, The Old Bar has always been a place where artists and performers alike have united over a shared love of art and music. With an art gallery upstairs that showcases new exhibitions every fortnight and a new live act to catch literally every night of the week, it’s the perfect place to go on a Tuesday or Wednesday when nothing else is on. Starting this month, The Old Bar will be hosting a weekly metal night called Morbid Mondays in their cosy band room which comes complete with one of the venue’s greatest assets as the nights get longer and colder – a fireplace.

With the one of the venue’s owners Joel Morrison booking the bands personally, they’ve hosted a massive variety of big name local acts as well as consistently showcasing some of the best underground and up-and-coming stuff that the city has to offer. “King Gizz, Courtney Barnett, Wil Wagner and The Smith Street Band have done residencies,” Joel says. “Cash Savage still plays here lots, Graveyard Train, Brothers Grimm. There have been so many shows. There have been at least nine shows a week for ten years.”

The Old Bar Seeking Information About Bandroom Vandals

The owners of The Old Bar also run The Carringbush Hotel in Abbotsford, a cosy venue with plant-based meals, art, live music and Taco Tuesdays seven days a week. Visit them on Johnston Street for a great evening out or, you could even catch them on the field as The Old Bar Unicorns also play in the Renegade Pub Footy League at Victoria Park – a not-for-profit community organisation that operates a gender-inclusive Aussie Rules league in Melbourne’s north.

While Camp Cope are taking over the world, we look back on their $5 show at Old Bar

Visit them at 74-76 Johnston St, Fitzroy. They’re open 3pm to 3am every day.

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