The Christchurch earthquakes three years ago have affected all the venues in what was an enviable music scene.
Goodbye Blue Monday and The Bedford in the city, and El Santo in Lyttelton were either destroyed or red stickered. The Dux De Lux found itself unable to reopen in the Arts Centre.
Surprisingly, the most chaotic looking of bars in Lyttelton, Wunderbar, turned out also to be one of the best built. It's now running smoothly after three separate re-openings, one of them after a five month wait for the council to sign off on a new staircase. “We’ve been very lucky with the steel strap building, so it shook but it never broke,” says owner Andre Bishop.
“Nice people only” reads a neon sign outside the Wunderbar. Poet Ben Brown describes the initial owner, Jörg Schwarz, as a unique character who created the Wunderbar in his own light. The interior design is described as dramatically eccentric by some. Originally from Germany, Schwarz was a trained window dresser, “which kind of reveals itself, in a way; there’s thought behind the madness,” says Brown.
“There’s such a diverse group of people that it attracts,” says Ivy Rossiter, a musician from another Lyttelton band called Luckless.
“You’ve got people who are there strictly to listen to the music; you’ve got people who are only in Lyttelton for a couple nights because they’re here from a boat, you’ve got working people, you’ve got artists, you’ve got people who looked like they’ve never been to a venue in their lives, it’s a really nice intersection of worlds in such a colourful space.”
Wunderbar isn’t the only venue helping the scene regain its post-quake mojo. The Darkroom has shows every night its open year round, and the successor to the Dux de Lux – The Dux Live, operates in a more industrial location in Addington. A number of venues and sometimes-venues hold weekly residencies by local songwriters.
Even better, for the punters at least, often smaller shows are free.
Listen to Anthonie Tonnon's radio documentary on the Wunderbar here:
Cover image from Jerry Hatrick on Flickr.
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