AWOL’s Guide To The Easter Long Weekend
Stuck for something to do this long weekend? Don’t worry – SOPHIA SOFTKY and JODY MACGREGOR are here with a guide to getting the most from your Easter break in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
MELBOURNE
Misty Nights: The Second Coming
Friday, 10pm @ Boney
If Melbourne’s club culture is a religion, Misty Night’s DJs are its prophets. On Friday night at Boney, after early sermons by Laila and Kris Baha, Misty Nights will be preaching the Gospel of Groove and bestowing pure disco benediction on the faithful. This Easter weekend, please go to church.
Doughboy’s Doughnuts Pop-Up
Saturday @ Queen Vic Markets
You’ve probably had your fill of hot-cross buns, but Easter season just doesn’t feel right without sweet, decadent pastries for breakfast (and/or lunch, and/or dinner). Fill that hole (pun intended) with Melbourne’s most sought-after doughnuts at the Doughboy’s Pop-Up this Saturday at the Mercat Cross Hotel in the Queen Vic Markets. The dough boys themselves will be serving up hot, fluffy, gooey goodness in every flavor – from salted caramel to key lime pie. Trust us, these doughnuts are practically a religious experience all on their own.
2001: A Space Odyssey final screenings
Saturday & Sunday @ The Astor
For more than 75 years, The Astor Theatre in St Kilda has been the crown jewel in the city’s movie-going tradition. Tragically, this beautiful theatre will be closing down mid-April after a protracted fight to keep its doors open. The final screenings, of Stanley Kubrick’s 70mm masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, will be held this weekend, with a 2pm and 7.30pm showing each day. No pressure, but if you don’t go you might regret it for the rest of your life.
The Operatives’ Easter Espionage Party
Sunday, 5pm @ Howler
Mysterious events conglomerate The Operatives have been staging the Espionage party series, featuring world class musical talent at the best venues Australia, New Zealand and Asia have to offer, for nearly five years. This weekend, The Operatives return to take over Howler with a night of 80s-indebted funk-pop, jazz, hip-hop and soul. It may be called Espionage, but there’s nothing covert about a line-up this good.
I Oh You Easter Sunday party
Sunday, 9pm @ Ding Dong Lounge
As far as origin stories go, you can’t get much better than I Oh You Records: legend has it the label was born when a few cash-strapped and highly-creative housemates threw a house party of mythic proportions to pay for a gas bill, and the rest is history. This Sunday at Ding Dong, I Oh You will be bringing the party once more, with the help of Collarbones, Milwaukee Banks and local slayers The Harpoons, supported by a huge DJ lineup. Trust us, this is one you don’t want to miss.
– Sophia Softky
Head to Melbourne with Qantas.
SYDNEY
The Rhythm Of The Night 1st Birthday
Sunday, 9pm @ Goodgod
Goodgod Small Club’s 1990s party The Rhythm Of The Night celebrates its first birthday on Easter Sunday by turning the venue into what is basically The Bronze from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, with a night full of ’90s bangers. The front bar becomes an R&B “grind-a-thon” while the Danceteria plays all the hits. You can get your requests in early on their Facebook event wall, although be aware that somebody has already put in a call for the Darkwing Duck theme song and Ace Of Bass.
Easter markets
Saturday and Sunday @ The Grounds Of Alexandria
If you’ve been past coffee specialists The Grounds Of Alexandria on Huntley Street you’ll have seen the two-metre tall chocolate egg, which is on show until 2pm on Sunday – at which point it will be shattered into chunks that customers can take away. Over the weekend they’re also having their annual Easter markets, and there will be an egg hunt through the garden where they’ve had a moss-covered giant rabbit installed. She’s called Kate the Moss Bunny, of course.
Dirty Dancing
Sunday, 7pm @ Sydney Open-Air Cinema
Movies are just better under the stars. Heritage Park’s new Open-Air Cinema has bars of both the candy and alcoholic variety, so you can enjoy a movie with an imported beer or popcorn or both. Gelato Messina have also created special choc-tops just for the cinema. On Easter Sunday they’re having a screening of Dirty Dancing, so bring a rug and someone special so that you can have, ahem, the time of your life.
Easter Feastival
Friday @ Sydney Fish Market
To celebrate Good Friday the Sydney Fish Market on Bank Street have extended their trading hours and will be open from 5am to 5pm. That is a lot of time to get yourself stocked up on seafood to last over the long weekend so that you’ve got something in the house other than chocolate to eat. There will also be face painting for the kids, and a visit from the Easter bunny at 10.30am.
Escape Hunt @ The Rocks
The Escape Hunt Experience gives you the chance to be a detective in an adventure game, taking you a hundred years back in time and then casting you and your friends as sleuths who have to solve a locked-room puzzle, finding clues, solving the crime and escaping with only an hour on the clock. Over the Easter weekend the Escape Hunts at The Rocks – with evocative names Murder In The Pub and Extortion At The Dockyard – have added a golden egg to each room, with prizes for those who find them.
– Jody Macgregor
BRISBANE
Hot cross bun gelato
Saturday, Sunday & Monday from 1pm @ Gelateria Cremona
During Easter every year Brisbane’s gelato specialists at the Gelateria Cremona parlour in Rosalie serve up their popular hot cross bun-flavoured gelato for a limited time. While you’re there you can try an Italian-style hot chocolate, or some of their other gelato flavours like nougat and Earl Grey tea. It’s also the season for their lychee sorbet, so you are basically spoiled for choice. (Closed on Easter Friday.)
David Lynch: Between Two Worlds
Saturday & Sunday, 1pm @ GOMA
It’s the perfect time to check out Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA’s) exhibition of visual art by acclaimed oddball film director David Lynch. As well as spending time with more than 200 of his artworks, on Easter Saturday and Sunday from 1pm you’ll be able to see screenings of his short films. Something for those who’d rather spend Easter with avant-garde work like Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream Of The Broken Hearted.
Easter Bombe @ Stoke House
Stokehouse Q, the fancy South Bank restaurant under the Goodwill Bridge, have a limited edition addition to their menu called the Easter Bombe. From the start of April through Easter Saturday it’s a white coffee parfait on a vanilla sponge base with 70% Guanaja Valrhona chocolate sorbet, wrapped in toasted coconut meringue. From Easter Sunday until April 12 it becomes a milk chocolate parfait on a red velvet and raspberry sorbet base, finished with an outer layer of traditional toasted meringue. Yum!
Jurassic 5
Saturday, 7.30pm @ The Tivoli
Soulful Los Angeles hip-hop crew Jurassic 5 are playing a Bluesfest sideshow at The Tivoli on Saturday night, all six members of the group having re-formed to bring their goodtime vibes back once again. Be prepared to sing along with the impossibly deep vocals of Chali 2na when they play ‘What’s Golden’ and then dance a whole lot.
I’m In Love With The Cocoa
Sunday from 2pm @ Fox Hotel
The Fox Hotel’s regular Soho Sunday party, with DJs on the rooftop as well as on the ground floor, is tweaking things for Easter with a Cocoa Lounge on level two. The Cocoa Lounge will be serving limited edition Nutella vodka and Ferrero Rocher cocktails as part of their “most unholy Easter” and you can chill on the leather couches of the mid-level art studio space when you need a break between checking out the two parties upstairs and down.
– Jody Macgregor
(Lead image: Boney/Supplied)
