Two rarely screened documentaries capture St Kilda’s sticky carpet heyday

St Kilda returns to its rock ‘n’ roll roots this week as two rarely-seen documentaries screen at The Astor Cinema as part of this year’s St Kilda Film Festival.

St Kilda Rocks pairs Punkline, which features footage of the long-gone Crystal Ballroom, and Last Drinks, a rough and ready fly-on-the-wall documentary capturing the last days of the Prince of Wales Hotel before the infamous sticky carpet was removed.

We’ve seen footage of many of the bands that played the suburb’s iconic venues over the years, but these two films offer a different perspective: the punters.

Filmmaker Tony Stevens was working as a drama editor at the ABC in 1980, with a couple of documentaries under his belt already, when he and a friend, Sue Davis, realised the crowds they were seeing at gigs were sometimes more interesting than the bands themselves. “Sue worked at a venue called Macy’s in South Yarra, and she knew everyone. We had this idea that … aren’t audiences amazing? It was 1980 and everyone just looked fabulous,” Stevens said ahead of Friday’s double bill.

“We loved the fashion, the haircuts, the attitude. Sue had the contacts and I knew how to shoot 16-millimetre film, so I said ‘let’s band together’.”

The pair made a deal with the Crystal Ballroom’s management to film audience members. “The Crystal Ballroom seemed to be the big attractor of this new look that was happening. We called it punk; everybody called it punk even though it was 1980, so it was officially post-punk,” Stevens said. “Now we look back on it and we say, of course, that was post-punk or New Wave. But you know, during the Renaissance, no one knew it was a renaissance.”

With a minimalist soundtrack by local experimental outfit Equal Local, and field recordings Stevens had of bird calls and police sirens, Punkline – named as a reference to 1979 Australian war photography documentary Front Line – is less than five minutes long, but captures an under-recorded aspect of the music scene at that time. Filmed across “four or five” gigs at the Crystal Ballroom, including an early show by The Cure and local bands The Models and La Femme, Punkline is a fascinating snapshot of the era – even if some of the fashion looks contemporary.

“It’s almost got a timeless look,” said Stevens, who went on to have a successful career directing music videos and documentaries. “But everyone’s smoking indoors. And cash registers! We’re not using cards. Someone noted recently that there are no people of colour in the audiences. So things have changed, but in other ways they haven’t.”

Even if you weren’t in the crowd yourse