Sydney’s iconic live music venue the Newtown Social Club closed for good over the weekend, laid to rest with two sold-out gigs by The Drones’ Gareth Liddiard, and now with the final curtain falling, the venue owners took to Facebook after its final show to wish the Club – and all of its supporters over the years – a sad but fond farewell.

Thank You and Goodbye

This is it, friends. Today is the last day for the Newtown Social Club. We love the venue that we’ve built the NSC to become and will always have a never ending list of beloved memories to look back on. We’d like to say a big thank you to every band, punter and promoter that we’ve ever had the pleasure of hosting, serving and working with. Without you all the NSC wouldn’t have become the amazing venue that it is today. Thank you to all our bar, kitchen and floor staff for being such a hard working, devoted and all-round incredible group of people to run a pub with.

We’ve loved every moment of running this place and it’s been our utmost pleasure and honor to be able to do what we do here everyday. See you all around for a drink soon. With love, the Newtown Social Club.

Equally-emotional was Gareth Liddiard’s farewell, with a packed room hanging on his every word as they soaked up the last remaining minutes in the warm, carpeted embrace of the NSC’s dark corners.

While the venue is just the latest closure in the wake of Sydney’s much-maligned lockout laws, there’s some light at the end of the tunnel, with members of the NSW Parliament meeting this Wednesday to hold The Labor Music Roundtable in an effort to more closely analyse the spate of recent closures.

It’s too late to save the beloved NSC, we can only thank the venue and its owners for the countless memorable nights of music it’s delivered over the years, and wish them all the best in whatever comes next.

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