History collides with banal daily life in elusive, almost-forgettable ways endlessly in Melbourne. When running for an express train from Flinders Street Station, commuters rarely reckon with the fact that a few storeys above them there is a 109-year-old ballroom. A block away, the imposing Nicholas Building might go unnoticed by lunch-hour scavengers waiting for their six-inch and cookie at Subway.
Neighbouring them both is Forum Melbourne, a live music venue that can inspire double-takes from tourists and seasoned gig pigs alike. It elevates the experience of a stop at the cloak room (upstairs, past the lamp-posts and nude sculptures that border the mezzanine) or a mid-show trip down into its cavernous, carpeted, subterranean bathrooms. When it came to highlighting the city’s most beloved live music venue, the Forum was the obvious, first and only choice.
