Andee Frost

Michael basically called us all over to his house for this "secret meeting" thing. He sat everyone down in a circle around his coffee table at home and said, "The club's closing down at the end of the year." He basically got the news on a fax.

Jaff Tzaferis

We found out, and I think we had about eight months' notice.

Adrian Fernand

It came as a major surprise to everybody.

Jaff Tzaferis

We thought we weren't going to have the space any longer. We thought, "Right, well, all we can do is look around for another space and until then we've just got make the most of what we have here and make a big hoo haa about us closing down." So we did exactly that.

Adrian Fernand

The media coverage it got was mental. We had a two-page spread in The Age [a major paper with a circulation of 200,000 at the time]. This was pre-Internet – to get a double-page spread was pretty epic.

Jaff Tzaferis

There were ticket sales for the last Honkytonks. I guess they were going for $100 or $200? It was the golden ticket for the last party.

Andee Frost

Then a couple of weeks before we were about to close, the people who owned the building were like, "No, you can stay, but on a month-by-month basis."

Jaff Tzaferis

We were like, "What? We've made the biggest deal about closing the doors to Honkytonks, and it's over. People are just going to think we’re bullshitting."

Andee Frost:

It was a bit of a free-for-all on the final night.

Jaff Tzaferis

It was a destruction party. Everyone could pretty much take what they wanted.

Michael Delany

We got out drills and let everyone screw shit off the walls. Everyone was walking out with tables, and stuff like that.

Andee Frost

My computer still sits on one of the club's coffee tables.

Mike Callander

That was one where I remember going home and showering and eating maybe twice, because the party just wouldn’t end.