Why this pub with no beer is a beacon for a city thirsting for music

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It was a rainy Monday night in 2003 when a young woman took the stage at a scuzzy little pub in Sydney’s Surry Hills. Her face looked familiar – was it from a tutorial at the University of NSW? Then she started to sing. Who was this? Where had she come from? And where was she going?

That performer was Sarah Blasko, one of many who got their start at the Hopetoun Hotel. I think it was a free gig, $5 at a stretch. That was typical at “the Hoey”. Blasko, of course, went on to become a multi-award-winning artist.

Surely if you get culture for free, or next to free, it’s worthless. Right?

The Hoey hosted regular live music from the 1980s to the late 2000s. And no-hopers like me – self-supported arty types – could afford it. So could poor kids, country kids, non-nepo babies and dreamers without banks of mum and dad. Along with the sounds came the indie, low-cost community around it – misfits of various ages and stages including students, interstate refugees (especially from Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s ’80s Brisbane),........

© The Sydney Morning Herald