ON A SUNNY SUNDAY EVENING in early autumn it’s hard to imagine many places I’d rather be than at the Theatre Royal in Castlemaine. There’s a band playing in its rambling back garden (home to Love Shack Brewing Co.), casting all-round good vibes to a laid-back audience of friends and young families. Out the front of the building’s striking facade, an Art Deco beauty rendered in 1938, people chat animatedly over craft beer at street-side seating as I head indoors for dinner at Lola, which had me at the promise of ‘good pizza, nice wine’. I pass through the old foyer, repurposed as an espresso and wine bar with a vintage ice-cream cart serving Lavezzi gelato from Melbourne’s Lygon Street, and sit down in a plant-filled nook that doubles as a boutique bottle shop. Light streams in through the windows, highlighting the posters on the wall that tell of the alternative music luminaries – from Dirty Three and Cosmic Psychos to Smog and Joanna Newsom
