Tony Ryan revives his love of local live music and discovers that yes, people do still collect playlists.
After travelling to the four-day Mundi-Mundi Bush Bash music festival outside of Broken Hill last year, my taste for live music has been somewhat reinvigorated. I do not have too much affinity with a tribute band (unless they are a favourite) but do enjoy a good cover band, especially later in the night when I am well hydrated.
My son and his mates like to pay big dollars to go and see a DJ who seems to play the one song the whole night and that song does not have one lyric.
The daughter is happy to pony up huge coin to see mega international acts at stadiums (where I find the sound not to be that great) and spend half the time looking at the video screens.
When I was in my early 20s – 25kg lighter and rocking a mullet – the live band scene in Melbourne pubs was so strong. We all had a mate (or a mate of a mate) in a band, belting out songs on a weeknight in dodgy venues waiting to be discovered. Unfortunately, the only one that made it big was the trombone player in Hunters & Collectors, who was a mate’s old music teacher.
I remember seeing the likes Paul Kelly, The Models, Kids in the Kitchen, Big Pig and, dare I say it, Uncanny X-Men in pubs where your shoe stuck to the floor and smoke filled the rooms so you could see as far in front of you as at Maddens Plains on a foggy night. Then going to slightly bigger venues to see Painters & Dockers (loved being in the middle of the mosh-pit), Hunters & Collectors and Crowded House – there would not be a fortnight without going to a live gig.
The lovely bride recounts stories of seeing Cold Chisel, Moving Pictures, Aussie Crawl and Dragon at the old Thirroul Leagues Club.
The days of looking up the album chart and seeing what is ‘hot’ and going to a record store and checking out hundreds of vinyls are so long gone. Even conversations over a beer or dinner now are consumed by what show we are streaming rather than what band or solo artist we’ve seen or heard is going to be the next big thing.
We recently went to see James Reyne (ex-Aussie Crawl) at the TBH and he put on a great show. Even my mate Big Mike (not the one from the Blindside) really got into it. Reyne – looking fit as a 27-year-old and not the 67 that he is – managed to entertain the capacity crowd with his brilliant guitar playing, strong unique vocals (I understood most of the words he sung) and a string of hits going back to the early 80s.
On Australia Day weekend, I really enjoyed seeing young local band False London, with a gig full of their own original songs. An entertaining frontman singing songs about their own life, love and hopes. It must be so hard for a great local band like this, trying to get gigs around Wollongong and Sydney. The effort to get a live following rather than social media followers would be an enormous challenge. Even radio airplay would be hard. Firstly, radio stations do not promote local bands and really, these days (to borrow a line from the 80s band the Sports), ‘Who listens to the radio?’
But I am as much to blame as anyone as my daily commute to Sydney is filled with sporting or crime podcasts or the 1500 songs on my playlist (apart from the five I downloaded after the False London gig). There are not too many songs from the past 15 years.
Maybe I should buy a pipe, slippers and a Jason recliner and then reminisce about music and how it is not as good now as it was in ‘my day’.