By Ingvar (Iggy) Lim. Adapted from THE SQUARE STATE, a cited history of Brisbane music from 1846 to 2026.

I edit Breakbone, a zine about Brisbane’s all-ages gigs, and I’ve written THE SQUARE STATE, a history of young people’s music in this city from the colonial curfew to now. One building on Boundary Street kept turning up in it. Student radicals hired AHEPA Hall in 1969, punks in 1978 and teenagers running hardcore shows in 2024, and each time somebody other than the crowd decided how the night would go. This is that thread pulled out of the book, with the sources at the end. It matters this summer because the list of halls teenagers can hire keeps getting shorter. A Brisbane community hall can now ask a sixteen-year-old for $10 million in public liability cover, and on 5 December the council closes the Visible Ink site in the Valley and starts its Young BNE programme the next day.

1969: FOCO’S ONE NIGHT

In 1969 the Foco club lost its home at Trades Hall. For about six weeks it had nowhere to open. Then Peg Penberthy found the club the AHEPA Hall in Boundary Street, West End, and the organiser Alexander Anderson knew what leaving Trades Hall meant. ‘Knowing that we would also not enjoy the protection of Trades Hall, a raid by the police was likely and indeed took place as anticipated’.[1]

The club opened anyway, under its old slogan, FOCO LIVES. Anderson told the crowd a raid was expected and that anyone who wanted to leave should go, and few went. The resident band, the Coloured Balls, started up while he walked outside to look. ‘I wandered out onto Boundary street and observed a large contingent of police drilling about 100 metres further down the road’. He went back in to warn the crowd a second time. The crowd stayed. Then the police came in and began dragging people out, and the band stopped and started a song of its own, the one that ends ‘all coppers are bastards’.[2] Anderson later called AHEPA ‘a one night stand’.[3]

1978: THE DERANGED BALL

4ZZZ held its second-birthday fancy-dress party in the hall in December 1977. The following August the Cane Toad Club hired it for the Deranged Ball, set for Friday 25 August 1978. Matt Mawson’s poster named Razar, the Survivors, the Patients and V2 and the Hiltons. Semper Floreat’s gig guide added three-dollar admission, food and licensed service, from seven until midnight.[4] The organisers got a full liquor licence, arranged food and hired bouncers, and John Reid remembered crowds of more than three hundred. On 19 August the Courier-Mail had promoted it under the heading ‘Our first punk ball’.[5]

Peter Steinheuer wrote the night up for Semper Floreat as its ‘Police Roundsman’. For the first hour or two the costume party behaved itself. ‘The who’s who of the badges and leather set chatted excitedly’. About ten police, in uniform and out of it, showed themselves at about half past eight. Some had been inside all along, dressed for the party, until they were seen making arrests. One of the organisers went out to meet the rest, asked whether there had been a complaint, and showed them the liquor licence.[6] Steinheuer wrote that the organiser was told there had been no complaint, and attributed the reply to an officer. ‘We’re the fucking police, we can go where we like’.[7]

A Semper record reviewer counted ‘The 30 or so arrests they made at the Ahepa Hall’.[8] The singer V2 told the paper that two plainclothes police had found him at Roma Street Station that Friday and told him he would be arrested that night, and he was. He spent the weekend in the remand section of Boggo Road, because he was on parole for driving without a licence and had missed a check-in.[9] ‘The incidents at the Deranged Ball received no coverage on radio (except 4ZZZ-FM) or in the press’, Steinheuer wrote. ‘Apparently 30 arrests is worth nothing any more’.[10]

THE HALL’S OWN COMMUNITY

The punks rented AHEPA for a night. South Brisbane’s Greek organisations had their own music and dance programme. Julie Nichles, nee Christofis, grew up in the Australian Hellenic Youth Association, and her mother Evangelia organised Greek School concerts, religious songs, costumes, dances and performances that raised money for community institutions. One family photograph shows a 1975 Greek Club gathering of nearly six hundred people singing old songs.[11] The community’s institutions made the hiring possible and kept their own purposes going beside the visiting bands. A history of the loud nights can tell that story without turning the hall’s owners into landlords in somebody else’s origin myth.[12]

In March 1981 the Clowns played the hall too.[13]

2024: ACOUSTIC OR LIGHTLY AMPLIFIED

For much of 2024 AHEPA was one of the places Brisbane’s young hardcore audience could get inside. AHEPA Queensland’s hire page, as it stood on 19 May 2024, answered a direct question from hirers. ‘Is live performance music allowed? Yes, as long as they are either acoustic or lightly amplified and must comply with AHEPA Terms and Conditions’. Noise complaints were the hirer’s problem, and hirers had to follow requests from police and Brisbane City Council.[14]

On Friday 19 April Antidismal had already put on ‘ANTIDISMAL ALL AGES HARDCORE’ there, a seven-band bill with Stressed and No Peace up from Adelaide.[15] The hire terms were written to keep the noise down, and the promoters hired the hall for music that exists to be loud.

On Thursday 6 June Sunami, from San Jose, played AHEPA. An outside contributor reviewed the show in Breakbone’s fourth issue and opened with the result. ‘The first Sunami gig on the 6th of June, 2024, at Ahepa Hall sold out’. The verdict on the building was as short. ‘This little community hall was rocked reckless’.[16] Five days earlier Mikey of the Brisbane band Verminate had told me he’d missed out on tickets to another Sunami show.[17]

Promoters kept booking it. For Friday 23 August Gormless Records listed Piss Off, Bubblegum Haircut, Ambrosial, PIMP, Two Piece Wonders and Broken Milk Crates from six until eleven for $15, with a gold-coin sausage sizzle from five. ‘Come down for some all ages fun, bring your mother, your brother, your sister and maybe your father’.[18] A bill for Saturday 9 November had Horsepower and Mindrace with Wetwork, Glitter Strip, The Meat and Brawlist, under the line ‘All ages, All welcome’.[19]

By December people inside Australian hardcore were treating the south-east Queensland all-ages shows as something new. In Rest Assured’s 2024 review, Adam McArthur of Team Glasses Records picked ‘Watching lots of kids take over booking the thriving AA punk scene in Brisbane’. Dan Bolton of Total Wreck pointed to ‘all ages hardcore going from strength to strength in SEQLD’. Cherry of Anti-Vision ranked Sunami at AHEPA among the year’s best shows. Those answers also held the weak point. McArthur complained about the ‘fragility of consistent AA venues’, and Dylan Fox of Wetwork, who had played the November bill, listed his disappointment of the year. ‘Also AHEPA not being available anymore’.[20]

2025: MIRRORBALL

AHEPA Hall kept holding music. By late September 2025 The Weekend Edition reported that Mirrorball Ministries was being fitted out inside the old hall, with an eighty-person space and a larger one for 250, each with a bar, opening on Saturday 4 October.[21] Its listing called it ‘An exciting new home for community and original live music inside a charming 1940’s hall in the heart of West End’, and the grand opening featured improvised music, with donations at the door.[22]

THE SQUARE STATE runs to fifty-one chapters. Breakbone is at https://www.google.com/url?q=http://breakbone.pages.dev&source=gmail&ust=1794113286564000&sa=E and on Instagram at @breakbonemagazine.

SOURCES

  1. Anderson, A., as cited in Neilsen, F. (2012b). ‘Australia’s most evil and repugnant nightspot’, the FOCO Club, personal recollections (P. Gray, Ed.). Brisbane Discussion Circle. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://radicaltimes.info/PDF/FOCO.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1794113286564000&sa=E
  2. Neilsen (2012b), above, including Anderson’s recollections.
  3. Anderson, A. (1970, September 2). The Foco story. Tribune (Sydney), p. 7. Trove. https://www.google.com/url?q=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article237504575&source=gmail&ust=1794113286564000&sa=E
  4. Mawson, M. (1978, August 25). The Deranged Ball [Poster, Unit ID 32479/7]. Jim Goodwin music poster collection, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://collections.slq.qld.gov.au/guide/32479/details%23IT32479-1-7&source=gmail&ust=1794113286564000&sa=E ; Semper Floreat (1978, August 16), Brisbane’s Living Guide, 48(13), p. 8. UQ eSpace. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:243811&source=gmail&ust=1794113286564000&sa=E ; Stanwell, J. (1979, December). The pocket Oxford history of 4ZZZ-FM. Radio Times, p. 4. https://www.google.com/url?q=http://radicaltimes.info/PDF/RTdecember79.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1794113286564000&sa=E
  5. Steinheuer, P. (1978, September 20). Special punk squad report. Part 1, The Deranged Ball blow-up. Semper Floreat, 48(14 to 15), p. 9 ; Alan Anderson, as cited in Neilsen, F. (2012a), FOCO Club memories, https://www.google.com/url?q=https://radicaltimes.info/PDF/FOCO.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1794113286564000&sa=E ; Courier-Mail (1978, August 19), as cited in Vuleta, T. (2010), Ups and downs: Music venues and popular music in Brisbane 1959 to 1989 [Thesis, University of Queensland], p. 20. https://www.google.com/url?q=http://radicaltimes.info/PDF/Ups%26Downs.pdf&source=gmail&ust=1794113286564000&sa=E
  6. Steinheuer (1978, September 20), Special punk squad report, p. 9.
  7. Steinheuer (1978, September 20), p. 9.
  8. Semper Floreat (1978, September 20). White music, XTC [Record review]. 48(14 to 15), p. 25.
  9. Steinheuer, P. (1978, September 20). [Profile of V2]. Semper Floreat, 48(14 to 15), p. 34.
  10. Steinheuer (1978, September 20), Special punk squad report, p. 9; Vuleta (2010), p. 21.
  11. Nichles, J. (2024, May 17). Lens on culture: Greek community in Brisbane with Julie Nichles (nee Christofis). State Library of Queensland. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/lens-culture-greek-community-brisbane-julie-nichles-nee-christofis&source=gmail&ust=1794113286564000&sa=E
  12. Nichles (2024); Kazonis, C. (2009, transcribed 2018). Paniyiri Greek Festival of Brisbane [Recorded digital story]. State Library of Queensland. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/digital-story-paniyiri-greek-festival-brisbane-2009&source=gmail&ust=1794113286564000&sa=E
  13. Walker, C. (2021). Stranded: The secret history of Australian independent music (Rev. ed.). The Visible Spectrum, plate caption and ch. 4.
  14. AHEPA Queensland. (2024). AHEPA hall hire [Hall hire questions; Internet Archive capture of 19 May 2024]. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://web.archive.org/web/20240519010907/https://ahepaqld.com.au/ahepa-hall-hire/&source=gmail&ust=1794113286564000&sa=E
  15. Antidismal. (2024). Antidismal all ages hardcore [Event listing for Friday 19 April 2024, AHEPA Hall, 128 Boundary Street, West End]. Humanitix. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://events.humanitix.com/antidismal-all-ages-hardcore&source=gmail&ust=1794113286564000&sa=E
  16. Breakbone [@breakbonemagazine]. (2024, June 7). Issue No. 4: Sunami at Ahepa Hall, 6 June 2024 [Zine, Instagram carousel; review by an outside contributor]. Instagram.
  17. Breakbone. (2024, June 3). Breakbone raw: Verminate interview [Video, recorded 1 June 2024, at 40:09 to 40:18]. YouTube. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3DvEXBipor_hY&source=gmail&ust=1794113286564000&sa=E
  18. Gormless Records [@gormless_records]. (2024, August). Rock and roll event at AHEPA Hall, West End, Friday 23 August [Gig poster]; (2024, August 18) sausage sizzle post. Instagram.
  19. Life.Lair.Regret records. (2024). Horsepower & Mindrace + More @ Ahepa Hall [Event listing for Saturday 9 November 2024]. Humanitix. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://events.humanitix.com/horsepower-mindrace-and-more-ahepa-hall&source=gmail&ust=1794113286564000&sa=E
  20. Rest Assured. (2024, December 27). 2024 the year in review. https://www.google.com/url?q=http://restassuredzine.com/interviews/8046-2024-the-year-in-review&source=gmail&ust=1794113286564000&sa=E
  21. Frostick, J. (2025, September 30). Pavement whispers: Volume 527. The Weekend Edition. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.indailyqld.com.au/theweekendedition-brisbane/food-drink/2025/09/30/pavement-whispers-september-30-2025&source=gmail&ust=1794113286564000&sa=E
  22. Mirrorball Ministries. (2025). Mirrorball Ministries grand opening: Featuring CHURCH Improvisation Sessions [Event listing for Saturday 4 October 2025, 3/126 Boundary Street, West End]. Humanitix. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://events.humanitix.com/mbm-grand-opening-41025&source=gmail&ust=1794120348834000&sa=E

Main Image: AHEPA Hall in its latest incarnation as Mirrorball Ministries