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| Penrith Star, June 23rd, 1998 |
- Spilt Milk (possibly did not play due to disruption)
- The Hassle Brigade (did not play)
- Clobassi
- Futile
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| Penrith Star, June 16th, 1998 |
The First Melrose Hall Incident:
In the years since, the 'Melrose Hall Incident' has become one of those hard-to-pin-down stories. In the last 8 months I've been researching this for fun (because that's the sort of person I am; tragically obsessive and a local history nerd). Today, while trawling old Penrith newspapers on the microfiche at Penrith Library, I finally found confirmation of when this incident happened and who was approximately there.
The difficulty in pinning this story down comes down to the probability of there being multiple incidents. In fact, there's likely a cause and effect chain between these incidents - it's not a coincidence that violence erupted multiple times at Melrose Hall, there was something akin to a territorial dispute happening, with a local gang (or gangs) taking exception to teenage punters enjoying alternative music in their 'hood.
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| Studying history is fun. |
My guess is that this show on 19th June, 1998, was the first incident (and the one that included an actual shotgun). This fits with The Hassle Brigade's timeline, in which this was their first proper show after reforming. Anything earlier than June, 1998, would have been before The Hassle Brigade had gotten back together with a new drummer and bassplayer. The reason it's a struggle to make all the details fit (I've spoken to many people about this now) is that there must have been a later show that featured a different combination of bands in support of The Hassle Brigade. This later show may have included Speckled Foam, Below the Belt, Room 101, and/or Little Lunch.
[Or maybe The Hassle Brigade didn't play the other show and the Below the Belt-related violence happened earlier? I think this is less likely as I think the newspaper coverage I've included here would've mentioned that this incident was the latest in a long line, blah blah blah, that sort of thing.]
Long story short, the 19th June show was underway when a gang appeared on the scene through the back door. Some people may have been bashed and threatened. Police arrived after being called in by the hired security and they chased down some of the gang members, apprehending one who had a shotgun on his person.
Let's hear from some people who were there. I'll just add the disclaimer that it's sometimes difficult to figure out if people are referring to this show or the later one (which seems to have been more violent but without a shotgun). These are the comments that I think relate to the 19th June show:
The interesting thing about the newspaper coverage is that both papers advertised this show a few days before it happened. Then, after the incident happened, one of the paper's (The Penrith Star) described it as a party with 400 people in attendance. See the image at the top of this page... they don't even mention that bands were there and they make it sound like the gang members were invited to this 'party'. If the writer of that article had simply looked at the previous issue of his own newspaper then he would have been able to write a far more factual account of what happened.
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| Penrith Press, June 16th, 1998 |
And here's the Press's coverage of what happened. They also call it a 'party' rather than 'show' or 'band night' but at least they mention that bands were there. I've included a transcript for this one due to the scan being such poor quality. You'll note that this article combines two evidently unrelated incidents as if there is a crime wave occurring across all of Penrith. In my 8 months of reading through about 2 years worth of locals papers from this time period, I do have to admit that Penrith crime seemed a lot worse back in the late '90s, however, this article has the typically alarmist hallmarks of hack journalism in its insistence of combining these two separate events.
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| Penrith Press, June 23rd, 1998 |
Transcript: A dance party in Melrose Hall, Emu Plains, where several bands were playing, turned into a near riot on Friday night and was out of the control of the security men on duty. Several police units responded about 9pm to calls for help from the security man - police said two were on duty.
Police were told a youth at the party had been wielding a shortened 22 calibre semi-automatic rifle, creating panic among other guests. When officers attempted to talk to a man he allegedly fled and was chased by police. The young man ran across the Great Western Hwy and in the course of the chase fell and injured himself, a police spokesman said.
The spokesman said a search of the backpack a suspect was carrying revealed a tomahawk and three knives. A man was taken to Nepean Hospital for treatment.
Across town on the following night, five men crashed an 18th birthday party with 100 guests int he Kingswood Park Community Centre, with one of them pointing a shotgun at a guest's head, police said. The five were asked to leave after they had assaulted one guest and harassed others but returned a short time later.
Party guests finally had enough and tackled the gatecrasher with the shotgun and chased him when he ran to nearby premises. It is understood the pursuers began taking defensive action in the form of hurling pot plants at their tormentor and possibly inflicting injury on him,
A police spokesman said all local medical centres had been alerted to look for and report to authorities a man of Mediterranean appearance, dark brown shoulder length hair, wearing a light blue sport jacket and light blue dress trousers. Two of his accomplices have been described only as of Mediterranean appearance while the fourth was Pacific Islander in appearance.
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| Melrose Hall, 2024. Built in 1934. |
The Second Melrose Hall Incident:
Now that we've sorted that out, let's look at the second incident. This event doesn't seem to have included any guns and the police may not have been there for this one, however, from the recollections of those who were there it definitely seems to have been a much more violent altercation.
I don't have an exact date for this show but I think it probably took place in early 1999. This allows for a time period where both Speckled Foam and Room 101 could share a bill together. This event is much harder to confirm as there doesn't seem to have been any local newspaper coverage of it (believe me, I've checked). This is why I've also made the assumption that the police probably didn't show up at this show as it would be the police who would communicate with the local papers afterwards.
The bands on this bill were definitely:
- Speckled Foam
- Room 101
- Below the Belt
And possibly:
- The Hassle Brigade
- Little Lunch
Here's some recollections from those that I think were most likely at this show:
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