26/07/2026
Saturday reminded me why community matters.
Standing with a couple of thousand people, surrounded by love, grief, hope, anger, laughter and determination, was incredibly energising. There were tears, there were hugs, there were brilliant speeches, and there was a powerful reminder that people care deeply about the kind of city we want to live in.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the Sydney I moved to in the early 90s.
I know I’m channeling nostalgia, but it really was a different city.
Back then, it felt like every pub had live music on a Friday and Saturday night. Every second person I knew was either in a band or sleeping with someone in a band. Most of us had bu**er all money. We were students, artists, on the dole, working casual jobs. But somehow that didn’t matter. We spent our weekends going to each other’s gigs, putting on shows, dancing all night, making art, meeting people and building community.
It wasn’t about spending money. What label our clothes were. It was about participating.
Then, little by little, that city started disappearing.
Rising rents squeezed independent venues. Poker machines replaced stages in countless pubs. Later, the lockout laws dealt another devastating blow to Sydney’s nightlife. Piece by piece, many of the places where culture was made,not just consumed, but made, began to vanish.
Today, too much of our city feels sanitised, expensive and increasingly dominated by corporate hospitality. Creative spaces are harder to find, harder to afford and harder to keep alive.
What makes me saddest is how our idea of a Friday or Saturday night has changed. It used to be gathering around live music, tiny bars, independent clubs, warehouse parties and creative spaces with your friends. Now it often feels like the default is booking a table at the latest gastropub or celebrity-chef restaurant and dropping a small fortune on dinner. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying a great meal, but somewhere along the way we’ve confused consuming culture with creating it. We used to go out to be part of something. Now we’re more often paying to be served.
That’s why what happened to Divine Playhouse matters.
This isn’t just about one venue, an
