The year is 1975, and Steve Young is a bit puzzled.
Surrounded and awed by the older jazz musicians of the 1960s, the teenager cannot help but feel slightly out of place at the Dunedin Musicians’ Club, along with the rest of the "young punks" on the scene.
But to his surprise, he was far from looked down upon.
The now former keyboard player of Dunedin alternative rock band Mother Goose says he felt "honoured" to have been welcomed by musicians he had looked up to.
"I really felt like I’d made it.
"I’d grown up as a teenager loving rock music and starting to play in very bad bands, as everyone does ...
"And all of a sudden, I felt part of the Dunedin musicians’ community."
Fifty years on and the Dunedin Musicians’ Club, in Manse St, still offers a space for musicians to hone their talent, perform onstage to a local crowd and hang out with other like-minded people every Thursday and second Friday.
The club was formed in 1974 as an incorporated society from a combination of the Dunedin Jazz Society, Otago Musicians’ Union and another group of younger musicians, who met regularly, but had no permanent homes.
The resolution to form the club was passed by the 45 original members sitting on the floor of what would become its Manse St clubrooms, which it now owns along with the land.
In the 1970s, all the pubs in Dunedin closed at 10pm, and so the club had offered a place for musicians to have a quiet drink after they played a gig.
The club marked its 50th anniversary at the weekend with three days of sold-out celebrations for members past and present, and featuring performances from acts including Robots in Love, Blow up Dollz, 3am, Pussyfoot, Linda Munro, Katharticus, Legacy Jam and Soul Deep.
About 100 guests attended each night.
Dunedin Musicians’ Club president Karl Brinsdon said the celebrations were "a reunion of sorts", with a lot of people travelling from out of town and overseas to hang out again and make music, including members from the 1980s and ’90s in reformed bands.
He had been visiting the club since high school, when he was about 16, and had learned to play music by hanging out with whoever was around, Mr Brinsdon said.
"It’s quite an important place to me."
The club contained "a few characters", some of whom had been going there since they were teenagers or in their early 20s.
They were "just part of the place", and everyone had their own two cents to give, he said.
"As someone who’s played there, it’s probably the place that I’ve had most suggestions of what would improve things about my performance.
"It’s a place with a lot of unique opportunities."
Graham Dooley, who was president between 2012 and 2019, said he had been coming to the club since the late ’70s and had performed there so many times that he had lost count.
"I walked in there a young man — underage, of course — and there was a jam going on onstage, there’s lots of people having a good time.
"It was just this conducive-to-a-good-time atmosphere.
"I thought, ‘wow, I’ve got to come back here’."
Back in the day, bands would play up to three nights a week around town and afterwards they and their groupies would go on to the musicians’ club while the adrenaline was still pumping.
"When it first kicked off, it was a raucous place.
"It was huge, it was always packed.
"Things have buttoned down a bit as years have gone by ... the financial climate has changed, people’s interpretations of entertainment have changed."
"But it’s good to see we’ve still got young people that are coming up to the club.
"They’re playing instruments and they want to be part of a band, do something live — that’s really important."
The club was driven by three generations of people, Mr Dooley said.
There was the "young blood", musicians who were just getting started and wanted to jam, plus those on the committee who were running the club, and the "hard stayers" who had been coming to the club for the past 40 years, or longer.
Some could still be seen on a Thursday night having a beer and enjoying the music, he said.
The club was undergoing an "evolutionary process".
"Without young blood, the place won’t survive.
"It can’t just be a whole lot of old farts that have been coming up there for 40 years and sitting in a corner; it won’t survive."
The club had a lot in common with The Crown Hotel, in that it offered a space for people to show their talent and both had their own "unique setting in Dunedin".
The club had been able to survive for 50 years partly due to word of mouth, and Mr Dooley said he expected it to continue because of membership subscriptions and people spending a few dollars over the bar.
He was "quite confident" it would keep going for some time yet because of the dedicated people working behind the scenes to keep the club ticking along — all for free.
"We’ve seen the hotels, pubs and clubs in Dunedin just come and go over the years, while the musicians’ club has just remained — and it’s not even in the main street.
"These clubs and pubs have come and they’ve gone because their drinks were too dear or people just didn’t want to go there, for some reason.
"If there’s nothing to offer, I suppose that’s what happens. You go into a bar nowadays [and] then you’re paying huge money for drinks."
Dunedin Musicians’ Club treasurer and member of pub-rock cover band 3am and rock, reggae and blues band Koputai People’s Party (KPP) Ashley Jowsey said he first visited the club in the early 1990s as a teenager.
It used to be "quite an exclusive place" and he recalled being invited into the club for the first time by a local musician who took their band under his wing.
Returning to the club after being away from Dunedin for about 15 years was like putting on "an old pair of jeans" one had not worn for a while.
The musicians’ club was "very integral" to Dunedin’s music scene, he said.
It was a place some of the city’s younger bands might not know about, but once they found it, it would surprise them.
"It’s like we often say, it’s one of Dunedin’s best-kept secrets — and it kind of is ...
"Sometimes I think it’s good for places like that to be sort of slightly under the radar."
The musicians’ club was still "a club" at the end of the day, and so there was "a bit of scrutiny" about who could join.
But being a member meant you had a say in the club, and the perks of membership included being able to hold gigs and rent the practice rooms, he said.
Marcel Rodeka, the former drummer of Mother Goose, Argus and a soon-to-be lifetime member of the club, said he had been going to there since the ’70s before leaving Dunedin to chase record company dreams and "world domination" with Mother Goose.
He returned to the city in 1991 and had been going to the club "pretty much ever since".
"When I was away with Mother Goose, I would come back to Dunedin if we were here touring and I’d be going straight there for a drink to catch up with everybody.
"When it was packed and busy and the bar was busy and bands were playing, they were awesome times to be young.
"It was all about the music."
Mr Young said a lot of characters had passed through the club who had encouraged younger musicians to play, and this spirit had carried on over the years.
Two of his teenage sons had visited the club in the ’90s, and were now professional musicians themselves.
"I guess you could say that every musician is a character.
"Anyone that’s brave enough to get up on a stage in front of his or her peers and play music and pretend they know what they’re doing is a character.
"I think the musicians’ club has fostered a lot of that over the years."
It was a "huge part" of the petri dish that was Dunedin’s music scene.
"To quote The Castle, ‘it’s the vibe’."
