r.i.p dive

the historical venue falls victim to legal and economic pressures, plunging Ōtepoti deeper into its current live music crisis.

in sad news another local music venue, this time in Ōtepoti, has closed.

As Hamish McNeilly reported in Stuff yesterday, Dive’s owner / operator Michael McLeod has decided to shutter the venue following prolonged disputes with landlord Chris James.

Dive (formerly know as The Captain Cook) was both the epicentre of Flying Nun’s Dunedin Sound in the 1980’s and the building in which I first heard the brostep anthem ‘Innocence’ by Nero during my first year university studies.

McLeod, a member of local band The Shifting Sands, had previously operated another cultural landmark in the form of The Chicks Hotel (rip) before its closure in 2016.

Chicks Hotel was an incredibly pivotal venue in my own musical history - hosting my teenage band These Dancing Wolves before becoming a home away from home for many Two Cartoons & Males shows, as well as being the venue for our last Dunedin show just before its closure.

In many ways Dive had filled the hole left behind by Chicks (and Sammies, and Starters, and The Attic etc etc etc) by providing a decent sized room for touring national & international acts (Mount Eerie literally just performed there) and sharing the load of an incredibly active and talented local live music scene.

As Kaitlyn Ratcliff (Promotions Manager, Bandit, Queen Of R1) of Dunedin’s Radio One 91FM told me Dive was uniquely important because it was able to “provide a venue that catered to everyones interests.”

“I’ve been to electronic gigs, surf-rock, indie-pop, rock, indie-folk etc gigs at Dive and all have drawn a really different audience each time while making me feel incredibly safe” - Kaitlyn Ratcliff

In a press statement released by McLeod through the Dive Instagram page, three seperate (and seemingly dubious) eviction notices + a $7000 water utility bill combined to produce an insurmountable obstacle for the venue.

The closure will not help the immense pressure on the local music community which is already dealing with development threats, lack of venues and an increasing difficulty to attract touring bands.

Having one less venue will increase the reliance on those spaces that still survive - even before this news The Crown had a lead-time for bookings of around 5-6 months - that will inevitable increase.

The anarchist run venue Yours and pop-up Maggies will attempt to meet the local needs but will invite more scrutiny in doing so, increasing their own risks for burnout / unwanted attention.

It’s already a difficult enough proposition for touring bands to make it down south without making it extremely hard to book a venue, as well as relatively expensive to execute.

“Ōtepoti is filled to the brim with last minute ticket buyers” Kaitlyn explains, “so for artists, not having the security of ticket sales already minimises the amount of touring acts . . . I imagine we will see a further dip in local music in Dunedin which is heartbreaking”

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all my homies support local

For now the advice on how to help is straightforward and singular - support your scene by buying tickets early and often to the music you enjoy in venues you want to survive. It’s really that simple.