This Sunday the Lord will hold service in Chippendale, as The Gladsong, to highlight the abandonment of the music industry and the restrictions, while religious outfits flaunt the rules.
On January 23 The (Lord) Gladsong and hold a Sunday service, as Sydney’s “newest and most poppin’ religious institution”.
“Ready for you to come confess your sins and be bathed in its holiest of water (Gladdy Lager on tap),” preaches the pub’s promotional page.
Those in attendance will be privy to $15 jugs of Holy Water (aka Gladdy Lager), $10 Bloody Lords (Lord Marys, of course) and DJs guiding majestic tones all day in the courtyard.
Entry will be free, and at midday a special keg will be tapped for which patrons pay whatever they choose for a schooner; all proceeds go towards Support Act – an organisation that delivers crisis relief and mental health services to those in the music industry.
The Gladstone owner Mitchell Crum says the music industry has slipped through the cracks, again.
“Once again it feels like our leaders are leaving our poor struggling musicians and artists back in the darkness,” he told Purple Sneakers.
“Live music venues, musicians, pubs and clubs all across the state have been the hardest hit without any support or closure.”
Crum stresses the event will be a party – not a protest – but one aiming to highlight the double-standard of religious institutions versus hospitality.
It comes in response to new restrictions by the NSW government banning singing and dancing at nightclubs, pubs, bars, entertainment facilities and music festivals – but not at religious services.
Crum believes the whole industry is feeling the same disappointment, amid the continual struggle of changing restrictions.
“This event is to highlight the inequality being shown to live music venues across the country while religious organisations get to carry on under a different set of rules,” champions the Gladsong’s event page, while stipulating that all current COVID restrictions will be followed.
Patrons are invited to “drink schooners and laugh and be merry in the face of hypocrisy”.
Last week footage emerged of a Hillsong Church summer camp in Newcastle, where huge crowds of people can be seen dancing and singing, some without shirts, most without masks.
It prompted outrage with many, particularly the penalised hospitality and music industries. NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard was even prompted to declare the event “clearly in breach of both the spirit and intent of the order”.
The new NSW premier, Dominic Perrottet, has said Hillsong will be fined for flouting the health orders, and the Newcastle summer camp has been cancelled for the breach, according to NSW Health.
This is not the first time the Lord Gladstone has put its moniker and reputation behind a social cause, having previously spent time as both the Lord Gallen Hotel and the Lord Turnbull.
