In 2019, it was known as The Cook, and in 2020 the name was changed to Dive. Several gigs happened during this period and in 2018 the pub adopted a more permanent focus on live gigs. The doors were closed on 16 June 2013, and stayed closed for several years before reopening in 2016 as a gastropub. Ultimately the tertiary institution’s concerted efforts to change student drinking culture in Dunedin rendered the Captain Cook Hotel an untenable operation. The University of Otago objected to the renewal of the owners’ licence. Paying scant regard to liquor licensing laws, these events virtually signalled the Cook’s impending demise. In the 2000s the hotel became host to the notorious Cookathon all day drinking binges at the beginning of the university semesters. The Bilders – Bill Direen (gtr & vox) and Stuart Page (drums) – playing at the Captain Cook Tavern, Dunedin 1984. “It was a very low stage, so the audience was right up against you and you couldn't see the bands if you were right down the back.”īut over the decades both Dunedin and student culture changed and the Cook became more known for lowest common denominator student behaviour rather than anything resembling a cultural experience. “It was pretty hot and sweaty, but that was kind of fun in its own way,” The Verlaines’ Graeme Downes recently noted. The venue was key to the wave of young Dunedin bands that followed – The Clean, The Chills, Look Blue Go Purple, The Rip, The Verlaines and others associated with the mythical Dunedin Sound. Here's the telegram from Roy Colbert to the band. When the management of the Cook Hotel in Dunedin learnt that Toy Love contained members of The Enemy they cancelled their first gigs. In 1980 that band played its last ever Dunedin show upstairs at the now Captain Cook Tavern. ![]() Soon he formed seminal punk act The Enemy, which moved to Auckland and morphed into Toy Love. In the late 1970s touring bands including Hello Sailor, and Dunedin covers bands like Cruze and Rockylox would play there, and be heckled by one Chris Knox. The Bats and Wreck Small Speakers On Expensive Stereos at The Captain Cook, December 1984 Meanwhile, upstairs was where the bands played, and where students tended to go. That scene was centred on the Corner Bar, while the more extreme drinking occurred in the main bar. Others who frequented the establishment during the 1960s and 1970s included writers James K Baxter, Hone Tuwhare, Cilla McQueen, and Sam Hunt, and artists such as Ralph Hotere. Later, during Duggan’s era, the Cook remained the preferred watering hole for Dunedin’s creative and intellectual communities. With a few kindred and beer imbibing spirits. Upstairs will principally be bedrooms and private parlours.”įive years later the University of Otago moved from Dunedin’s Exchange to the city’s North End, and the Cook quickly became central to student cultural life.Īs the liberal spirit of the post-First World War years swept New Zealand, a generation of bohemian students revelled in their freedom through jazz and drinking.Īn unattributed 1923 poem entitled Poverty and Happiness captured the mood of the times:Īn afternoon – “at home” – at Captain Cook’s hostel, The defunct Dunedin newspaper Otago Witness described it at the time as, “two storeys high, including on the ground floor a bar, bar-parlour, private parlour, billiard room, kitchen, servants’ rooms and pantries. The Captain Cook Hotel was opened by Michael Brown in 1864, as Dunedin swelled as a result of the Central Otago Gold Rush.Įven in its earliest years, the hotel was a venue for performance – a status it maintained for over 150 years.īrown’s wooden structure was demolished in 1874, making way for the brick and stone building that still stands on the corner of Albany and Great King Streets.ġ984 poster for The Captain Cook - Design by Sarah Caselberg This jaundiced observation may well have been the definitive comment on the historic hostelry. The place is crammed to bursting with crazy humanity.” Without strong drink that would be an unendurable sight. “The awful spectacle of the New Zealander enjoying himself. ![]() The Captain Cook Hotel did not impress the great New Zealand writer Maurice Duggan in 1960.ĭuggan, spending the year in Dunedin as Burns Fellow at the University of Otago, reported on an after hours drinking session in the back bar.
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