A new heat pump for the well-loved Penguin Club was a "pretty radical" way to celebrate 35 years of a music institution.
The Penguin Entertainers Club was established in 1990 by local musicians looking for suitable practice rooms and somewhere to chill out after gigs.
Spanning over three decades, the club’s Harbour St premises has since hosted many hundreds of local, national and international musicians, ranging from The Feelers and Supergroove to Anika Moa.
Early founding member, former club president and committee member Graeme (Clarkie) Clark said the generous donation by Waitaki Refrigeration of a commercial $10,000 heat pump will help keep the music venue "damn hot".
"It’s pretty radical — we’ve only ever had an old pot belly to warm the place, so this is going to be damn hot," he said.
Club president Collan Fraser said the donation was "phenomenal" support for the club and saved them "thousands of dollars".
Mr Clark, who is also vice-chairman of the Whitestone Civic Trust, said the club is the oldest and longest service club of the historic precinct.
Waitaki Refrigeration employee Hayden Wylie played his first gig in the band Harold The Pet Sheep at the club in 1996.
Wylie said it was at the "only live music venue" in Oamaru at the time and "a lot of fun".
He now plays in the popular band The Heavy Feathers.
Anniversary celebrations include the club recreating their first "Homegrown" event from 1991, which was born out of the idea of giving local band members a venue to "shine their light".
"In the original Homegrown, they put all the song names in a hat and then they drew out one song, and the bands had two weeks to go away and learn it and practice it, so we’re going to do that again," Fraser said.
Homegrown is on August 23; celebrations also include a "Dunedin musos’ club visit" in October and a "birthday bash" at the club on November 22, Fraser said.
Fraser, who has been club president from 2016, said when he first attended the club in the early 90s there were only "two speakers on the wall and a Holden six-channel mixer on stage, and that was it", yet the venue was integral to music culture in Oamaru.
"We were happy as long as there was music, but the quality of the music has definitely improved over the years; in the beginning some of it was pretty rough, now most of is pretty damn professional." he said.
He had seen many changes at the music venue, including a larger stage, fewer touring bands and the audience.
"Our club members and audiences are usually a lot better behaved than they used to be, a little less raucous — and that includes me," he said.
With more venues available for live music, touring bands were fewer than before but they were still a focus, along with the jam nights for locals, Fraser said.
One of his favourite memories was seeing Wellington band The Hot Grits, now defunct, play in the early 2000s.
"I walked in, listened to one song and I walked over and bought the CD straight away — they were amazing," he said.
