When the lights went out

Phil Rudd, Bon Scott and Malcolm Young of AC/DC, backstage at Bondi Lifesaver. Picture by Violet Hamilton

From 1972 to 1980, every major Australian band from AC/DC to Cold Chisel played the Bondi Lifesaver. But then the Bondi Junction venue was razed to make way for a shopping centre, taking a gloriously seedy part of Australian history with it, writes Craig Griffiths

“The only time I went to the Lifesaver I was underage at 16 and spent the night in the corner shitting myself, as the place packed out with unbelievable rock ’n’ roll types and royalty, to see Dragon. I saw the awesome charisma of Marc Hunter and the brilliance of that band live in a small club and I wasn’t the same boy when I snuck out” - Ken Gormly, The Cruel Sea

This is the story of a much loved rock ’n’ roll fun park told by those who were there — which is tricky because we partied hard, hardly slept and were careless with our brain cells. From Bondi Beach to Kings Cross and all points in between there was simply too much music to play or hear, too much excess to exceed, too much indulgence to overindulge in, too few hours in days and nights.

Pharmaceuticals were part of the deal. For many of us who wallowed in the swamp of ‘70s and ‘80s excess the first verse of Ian Dury and The Blockheads’ 1977 anthem Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll was the gospel: “Sex and drugs and rock and roll is all my brain and body need. Sex and drugs and rock and roll are very good indeed.”

The Lifesaver years, 1972 to 1980, was also a golden era of lust. By the mid-‘70s Aussie women were the highest users of the contraceptive pill in the world. And there wasn’t much a shot of penicillin couldn’t fix in that pre-HIV era. In the ‘60s there was a lot of talk about sex, in the ‘70s people really did get down and dirty to the extreme.

Doc Neeson of The Angels. Picture: Murray Cox

But it was a risky lifestyle in other ways; by the mid-‘80s most of us had lost friends to death or mental destruction. Overdoses were common, suicides seemed regular and those of us who danced with nine of 10 toes over the edge are rather surprised to still be here all these decades later. But that survival was often good luck over good planning because when it came to pills, potions, powders and plonk, “moderation’” wasn’t in the dictionary for many of us.

The Bondi Lifesaver operated in what had once been Frank Theeman’s Osti bra factory and many regulars fondly called the place “The Swap”, short for “wife swapper”, as immortalised in the Sherbet song The Swap off their blockbuster 1976 album Howzat!

The Lifesaver wasn’t like most music venues , it was special. Its sole reason for existence was for music, musicians and music-lovers. It wasn’t a pub, it didn’t have accommodation, bingo, karaoke or pool comps and your aunt didn’t duck in for a Sunday sherry while pumping a few coins into the pokies. The food was only there to meet the liquor laws that enabled late night live music and partying.

It was the rock ’n' roll headquarters where Australia’s best and most famous musicians loved hanging out just as much as the regular punters did.

What also set it apart from the usual transformations, renovations and reinventions of music venues across Australia was the way it ended. It didn’t fade slowly from memory, it was gouged out.

Many good venues have suffered the indignity of gentrification or re-purposing, with the bones of the original building remaining for us to point at and bore the kids with stories of misspent youth as we drive by in the sensible sedan. The history of these places with familiar facades survives in living memory a little more easily. If I stroll past the Hotel Astra on Bondi Beach very fond memories of that infamous 1970s and 80s den of drugs and fun come to mind (well, they’re more like flashbacks to be honest ), even if it is now a retirement village.

But 56 Ebley Street Bondi Junction isn’t even an address any more. The Lifesaver and adjoining terraces were excised from eye and memory when the whole block was dozed and dug to build a shopping complex. The site of Australia’s greatest rock joint is now the towering back wall of Eastgate’s carpark. If you stand near the corner of Ebley and Newland streets, it’s almost impossible to picture what used to be.

Consequently, I rarely thought of the Bondi Lifesaver, but in 2011 it popped into my head and I punched it into Google, as you do, to have a quick browse of pics and memories. You can find everything on Google, but there was nothing. Then I dug into the hundreds of rock and roll books I’d been collecting my whole life and found that very few talked about the joint in any depth. Not one contained a photo of the place.

That’s when I started a closed Facebook group restricted to those who went there so we could tell our dirty, stoned tales in all their glory, and decided the library shelf marked “Aussie Rock ’n’ Roll” really was missing a title and someone had to write it.

This is an edited extract from The Bondi Lifesaver by Craig Griffiths

thebondilifesaver.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Craig Griffiths is a musician, writer and graphic designer who started going to bars at the age of 15 and spent too many years waging the war against sleep at places like the Lifesaver, Astra Hotel, French's Tavern and countless Kings Cross dives. He grew up around Bondi, has lived in Tasmania off-and-on for ages, and returns to his beloved Bondi Beach a few times a year.