The Caravan Club, located for the past five years in Archies Creek, Victoria, has announced that after 20 years it will be presenting its final concerts under the stewardship of Peter Foley and to celebrate his ‘alleged’ retirement, a grand farewell is planned for Sunday March 31, with a second concert announced for the evening! Tickets are available now from the Caravan Music Club. Tickets for the first show are already sold out.
In announcing the farewell shows, Peter Foley wrote about the history of the venue: “In April 2004 we assembled a little PA in our house on noisy Dandenong Road and put our very first house concert on. Now 20 years later it feels appropriate to call time on our beloved Caravan Club. Although we desperately love what we have created and it is really difficult letting go, we can feel ourselves sliding into a tired and grumpy abyss and that ain’t a place we wanna be… We’ve had a bloody good innings for a live music entity and we can now only feel gratitude to the many beautiful souls, both musicians and punters, that have supported us and gathered around the Caravan campfire of joy. We have happily dragged the little Caravan to so many places, from the house concerts in Oakleigh and Murrumbeena, to the 10 year halcyon period in Drummond Street – firstly at the Oakleigh Bowling Club then to The Oakleigh Carnegie RSL. We detoured down to St Kilda to establish the Memo Music Hall, then to Bentleigh for a couple of years, before ending up at our final resting place in the small hamlet of Archies Creek where we have spent 5 wonderful years.
Yes we are going but we aren’t going quietly ..its a very noisy business ..just ask our long suffering neighbours! … On the road out we have an epic program of gigs featuring Caravan legends like Don Walker & The Suave Fucks, Ed Kuepper, as well as Augie March who will be playing Caravan for the first time. The final gig will be on Friday April 26 but we thought it would be downright negligent not to celebrate the last 20 odd years with a big goodbye shindig over a couple of days on the Easter weekend. Caravan favourites THE BLACK SORROWS will rock the joint for the very last time on Saturday arvo March 30, before a massive joyous all in brawl on the Sunday arvo March 31 featuring a cavalcade of Caravan favourites. The special GOODBYE TO THE CARAVAN CLUB celebration will feature the oh so adored VIKA & LINDA, MARK SEYMOUR, ADALITA, KUTCHA EDWARDS, SUZANNAH ESPIE, MICK THOMAS, REBECCA BARNARD, BILLY MILLER, THE DUSTY MILLERS, NICK BARKER, JONNIE GOES TO CHURCH, IAN BLAND plus an all star band THE ICONOCLASTS led by SHANE O’MARA.
We have so loved the journey…not in our wildest dreams did we imagine the awesome roll below when we started. We sincerely hope you guys enjoyed the ride too and it would be lovely to see you at a gig before we close the doors.”