My suburb is an unsung, and unlikely, hero of the music scene

July 20, 2026 — 7:00pm

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For most Melburnians, my suburb is interchangeable – in name or direction – with a shopping centre. Their entire view of the place where I have lived for seven decades is based on their experience of Eastland, our retail adventure playground. I get it – there’s a lot to see there. The shopping centre is coming up for its diamond anniversary next year and has grown into the third-largest centre in Australia in terms of the number of shops.

Costco is a stone’s throw across the road from Eastland, which adds another opportunity to spend. Once you’ve visited the shops, had a haircut and a massage, seen a movie or eaten from the array of food outlets you might well ask if this suburb is nothing more than Chadstone, Fountain Gate or the Highpoint of the east.

Yet, Ringwood is more than the shopping experience.

For a start, it has since the 1960s been an unlikely centre of Melbourne’s music culture. Many of the local schools have actively promoted the arts – music, acting, painting and writing. Most of the families are middle class and the pressure on students to get out into the workforce hasn’t been as strong as elsewhere. So there has been an opportunity to follow your passions. Half the Skyhooks (bassist Greg Macainsh and drummer Freddie Strauks) attended the local high school and were prominent in local bands before the Skyhooks came together. Roger Hart-Wells, of Little Heroes, artist Herman Pekel, and a string of actors in Home and Away, Neighbours and The Sullivans came from Ringwood.

Ringwood was full of great, yet small, music venues. Church halls, Scout halls and the Ringwood Town Hall were THE places to go on a Saturday night. The Piccadilly nightclub at the Town Hall drew the likes of John Farnham, The Masters Apprentices and Johnny O’Keefe. The former........

© The Age