Melbourne Music Venue: Billboard the venue / 170 Russell

Address: 170 Russell St, Melbourne VIC 3000

170 Russell street, 31/03/2020

Similar to Max Watt’s, you can easily walk past the entry to this venue and miss it. The entry looks like a fire exit door, but it opens up to a big basement venue (can hold 900 people), what was once a theatre restaurant.

Total House, 170 Russell street, Melbourne, 21/06/2020

The building that the venue resides in is called Total House, built in 1965, is an early example of Brutalist architecture and is listed with the Victorian Heritage register.

One of the great things about this venue is all of it’s levels, you can see the performance from just about anywhere. However this is also a disadvantage for the visually impaired (like myself) as you have to watch out for those stairs.

City Calm Down, 1/09/2017

Reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_House

Melbourne Music Venue: Hi-Fi / Max Watts

Hi-Fi Bar and Ballroom from 1998 to 2015

Max Watts from 2015 to today (changed due to Hi-Fi going into administration)

Address: 125 Swanston St, Melbourne VIC 3000

This is a venue where you can easily walk past it and miss it. If there’s a gig on people will be outside and you may wonder what’s going on.

Max Watts, 31/03/2020

Max Watts, 31/03/2020

I really enjoy walking down the narrow staircase to what opens up to a large ballroom.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a photo, so here’s a ticket from an awesome At The Drive-In and Magic Dirt gig (27/01/2001), before they played the 2001 Big Day Out.

At The Drive-In and Magic Dirt Ticket, 27/01/2001