The strangeness of the TV evening news in America carrying a story about shark attacks at and near Sydney’s Manly Beach stayed with me the other evening, and then the news of Rob Hirst’s death – expected and yet horrible in its finality – flooded my social media feed. And immediately I thought of the opening to my Songwriters Speak chapter on Rob and his Midnight Oil co-writer, Jim Moginie.
I re-watched the Lilith Fair documentary on Hulu a few days after seeing Sarah McLachlan’s flawless performance at The Orpheum, the final date of her nine-city tour in support of her latest album, Better Broken, which I have been listening to a lot these past couple of months.
Sarah will be the first to put herself out there as imperfect but her version of being broken is a state of being human that most of us who are brittle, vulnerable and deeply flawed, women especially, would aspire to. She is profoundly talented, an extraordinary vocalist, an ingenious and honest songwriter, a translucent performer.
Getting to this Heart show in Anaheim near the end of a year crazier than the lyrics of “Crazy On You”, after two missed opportunities, withstanding horrendous LA weekday traffic, dressed in concert attire that makes me look cool even if I don’t feel cool, and upgrading my view from sixth row side to second row centre because I was plucky enough to claim an empty seat – which it turned out was alongside Mike Flicker, famed Heart producer, and his family – was all enough to justify being ecstatic as the opening riffs of “Bebe Le Strange” began.
Mainly I was euphoric at hearing Ann and Nancy Wilson live, singing gorgeous songs, being up close, seeing Ann looking so beautiful and sounding remarkably good after her significant health challenges.
I literally started writing this four weeks before I saw the Fireworks Finale show at the Hollywood Bowl, because I knew what I was setting myself up for, and I just wanted to get the heading and central remarks in place, so it might not be so painful when I came to write about the absolute final time I ever saw Chicago in concert.
That was last night, so I am finishing this piece today.
I was there. Three words, and then some.
We frequently see people posting a link or photo on social media these days saying, “No words.” What a strange way to describe something so incredible, beautiful, sad, devastating, any or all of the above. “No words” – well, those are actually words. There are always words.
I did consider just posting all these photos with literally no words. But even though for a few days I felt challenged to find some original, revelatory words, I was not copping out. I had to offer some of my own words about what I experienced last weekend at the Hollywood Bowl. And here they are pouring forth.
It is no accident, although unplanned, that Kylie Minogue performed the final show of her US “Tension” tour the same night as the Australian federal election. While the humungous audience at Crypto Arena was largely American and male and gay and sparkly, the joy and pride for the Aussie icon whose unpretentious star shines so bright, whose home accent seems more evident than I’ve heard in years, whose decades of hard work have ascended her to global success few really imagined possible when she released “I Should Be So Lucky”, was as glorious and victorious as an election result in favour of what is good and true and fair and free.
I love Cold Chisel – Aussies all, or mostly, do – but this is not going to be the kind of write-up all those blokey music writers were writing during this 50th anniversary tour or the kind of breathless salivating social media posting everyone – men, women, children and their pets – were populating my feeds with through 2024.
It is difficult for me to write anything particularly original about a band that is so adored and lauded and so cocky that they refuse to even take a bow to acknowledge their adoring audience at the end of their show but whose music I genuinely do enjoy. Sharing the photos I took over the two nights I saw them might be the best I have to offer, along with a potted history of my experience of getting into their music.
“I love you Nick!”
Between every song came that call out. From a woman or a man, a disembodied voice from somewhere in the audience.
“I love you Nick!”
“I love you, too,” replied the gentleman on stage at the piano, each and every time.
And now and then he would add, “Now shut the fuck up.”
Night three of Nick Cave’s sold-out run at Los Angeles’ historic Orpheum Theatre, final night of a North American solo tour, accompanied only by bass player Colin Greenwood of Radiohead, and there was a huge amount of love in the room.
Somebody told me today that I live an enchanted life. I had been sitting on the beach thinking about what to write to accompany my photos from last night’s Brandi Carlile and Friends show at the Hollywood Bowl, and as music is inextricable from life for me, naturally I dived into existentialism and experientialism. …
For four years I have started to write about Brandi Carlile and stalled several times. There is so much to say and I’m surprised at how hard I have been finding it to say it in prose, to rise up to the standard of such an extraordinarily impactful artist. A much longer piece must be written but today I am just going to post these photos from a magical night at my favourite venue in the world.
I returned to LA a couple months ago with the intention of writing for the rest of this year. It’s been hard to do that so far. So I’m glad to have a story to tell that gets the fingers moving on the keyboard, a story of writers inspiring other writers, a story of music and magic. An LA story.
If I sit in front of Chicago, I take photos. These are here to serve as a testament to the fact that I was there, seeing them again, seeing them ageing on, seeing their lineup changed yet again. Seeing them but for now, not saying – writing – anything else.
I’ve railed against ageism in recent years, ageism for women particularly, as it has affected my professional life. But there are a number of women in music whose lights are shining more brilliantly than ever in their old age and, in some cases, ill health, and I think it’s an interesting and powerful movement. If they are anything like me – and they must be, because I am a woman and I am human – they likely still feel childlike beneath their lined and weary skins and bones.
After almost two years of silence on this blog, how do I write something that might be music to your ears – or eyes?
This won’t be the most conventional way back in to writing about music in my life but that’s me, unconventional at best. This is not a story about a Thin Lizzy concert, either, despite the photo above. This is just a story about me and music, a relationship that does not feel as it should right now.
It needs to be said, unequivocally, that Little River Band’s album Sleeper Catcher is one of the most beautiful, exquisite, perfect rock albums ever recorded.
I say “one of” because of course there are many, and my tastes are particular, and don’t encompass a lot of the music that my friends and colleagues swear allegiance to. But as I recently wrote in “What was I thinking?” about the shameful, unforgivable culling of my music collection, and have had cause to look down the list of what vinyl I had owned, and what I still do, and what I have in my huge digital library, and make comparisons, I understand that there are some albums that really should only be heard in their original formats, and Sleeper Catcher is one of those. You need to play it on vinyl, as it was released to the world in 1978.
One year ago Andrew “Greedy” Smith of Australian band Mental As Anything died suddenly. While we lose our music icons more and more as we all get older, this one was even more horribly upsetting because Greedy hadn’t been ill, he was way too young, and he was one of the nicest guys you could ever meet. To pay tribute to him on this first anniversary, I’m sharing the entire chapter from my book Songwriters Speak on the Mentals’ two key songwriters, Greedy Smith and Martin Plaza, Hope you enjoy.
DEBBIE DOES MUSIC 