ANTHEMS Was Nearly Not ANTHEMS

When I started putting together the old-school party in mid 1996 that became ANTHEMS, the name was not quite the obvious choice it now seems.

I was at work one day around shift change, chatting with Tracy Brown about possible names. Somewhere in that conversation she reminded me that Anthem had already been used for a Thursday night at the Synagogue a few years earlier.

And she was right.

On Thursday 17 November 1994, Anthem opened at the Synagogue off Rundle Street, with Uzi, Angu$, MPK and MC Maestro D, playing “a selection of past and present anthems.” There was even complimentary beer and champagne from 10pm.

It was remarkably close in name, and even in concept, to what I was considering. So there was a genuine period of deliberation over whether I should use ANTHEMS at all.

My memory is that the Synagogue night was connected with MPK and the Instantaneous Productions crowd, although more than 30 years later nobody I’ve asked seems completely certain who was actually responsible for it. Daniel and Damian themselves don’t seem to have much recollection of running it, which probably says something about its place in Adelaide club history.

As I remember it, Anthem didn’t last particularly long and wasn’t especially well attended. It simply slipped away, as countless weekly club nights did.

In the end, I decided enough time had passed, added the S, and went with ANTHEMS.

Funny to think that a short-lived Thursday night, almost forgotten even by the people around it, nearly stopped the name being used at all.