I think this Age article is a nice read, what do you think? Melbourne Age Date: 04/12/1998 It is 1979, and Cold Chisel are playing the Tottenham Hotel, or the Tottie as it was known, deep in Melbournes working class west. Sixteen-year-old Michael Lawrence is there, armed with fake ID. He is so close to the band that when Ian Moss leans down to adjust something on the floor his guitar nearly hits Lawrence on the head. Jimmy Barness raw, gravelly voice leads the band into Wild Thing, and if it is anything like the epic version that rambles its way through recordings of Chisels Last Stand concert at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, 15 December 1983, Barness voice wears Mossys guitar like a shadow. Barnes screams, whispers and writhes, Chisels very own wild thing. Up the back, hiding behind a keyboard, is his antithesis - Don Walker. Everyone thought he was a nuclear physicist or something, says Lawrence. Like in a lot of the best rock n roll bands youve got this balance between the wild side of things and the superbly cultured. It was like in Led Zeppelin, you had Robert Plant who was the wild guy with the blond hair and then you had this Jimmy Page who was a very sophisticated, shy, quiet character. Add straight man Phil Small (bass), and volatile drummer Steve Preswitch to the Chisels mix and the chemistry, Lawrence says, was irresistible. Back to the Tottie, 1979, and Lawrence and his mates are screaming for Jimi Hendrix. In an instant, Cold Chisel abandon Wild Thing and burst into Purple Haze. Lawrence has yet to see another band capture their spontaneity and intensity. On the way home, one of his friends stretches out on the tracks of the St Albans train line. Lord, take me now, he says. Its never going to get any better. Nearly 20 years later, a vision of Barnes in the leather pants that seemed painted on during the Chisel years, white headband, arms aloft, empty vodka bottle and microphone in one hand and sweaty towel in the other, still looms almost as large over Australian music. Then, Cold Chisel were saying goodbye, or, as Barnes eloquently put it during a quiet moment in Goodbye Astrid, Goodbye: Now listen ... without screamin ... without breaking down into tears ... Id like to thank yous all for comin ... deadset, f--- yous guys weve had a good time ... all these years weve f---ed you about. Last Sunday night at Melbourne Park, Barnes reintroduced Cold Chisel in a familiar fashion: How ya doin? Its been f---ing ages. In the two hours and 20 minutes that followed, the band recaptured the intensity and chemistry of Cold Chisel. They have aged well. Barnes is bleached but still leathered, still a centre of energy and personality. A young man in the front row with a camera hanging around his neck is screaming for Jimmy. Its enough that Jimmys sweat lands on him, but when Barnes crouches down, grins at him and poses for a photo, the man erupts into a some kind of manic frenzy. Barnes is still Chisels wild thing, pausing to kick back and listen to his rhythm section of Phil Small and Steve Preswitch, occasionally throwing an arm around one of them, once landing a kiss on the lips of the backing singer. You get the impression they are relishing the reunion. Still, Barnes is tempered by Moss, whose bluesy rendition of Georgia, from a little, low stage up the back of the tennis centre, was superb. It says something of Chisels endurance that many of the fans who slept out for tickets missed Chisel the first time around, and that rather than become faded and jaded during 15 years of incessant radio play, the band has collected a new generation of disciples. The bands publicists estimated up to 80 per cent of the audience at Melbourne Park last Sunday night were aged 16 to 25. Because you dont have to have been there, in the crowds lining the floors of pubs around the country, passed out before the show even started after trying to emulate Barness vodka consumption, to understand. Thats been one of the most surprising things, says Steve Preswitch. You look out there and theres almost three generations ... There are so many young people out there, and in that 15-year period they seem to have learnt the words to all our songs, which is quite amazing. Not only is Kirsty Johnson 22 - too young to have lived the original Chisel experience - she is female, not a working class man by any means. Up before dawn to snare a pair of Chisel tickets, she was struck by the diversity and youth, of her fellow-fans. There were a couple of girls, in their heels, who looked as though they should be in line for a Ricky Martin concert, she says. I remember at one stage (about seven years after Chisel disbanded) I realised that all the songs I liked were by the one band, and that the band was Chisel. I just never thought Id see them play. Kirsty finds it difficult to articulate what appeals to her most about the radio songs, and, as she delved deeper into the Cold Chisel collection, more obscure tracks such as Four Walls and Drinkin In Port Lincoln. She thinks it might have something to do with Don Walker. Walker once said he wanted to Get this country down in a collection of songs. Indeed, Khe Sanh, about a disillusioned Vietnam vet, sits comfortably alongside Bruce Dawes Homecoming as a poignant slice of Australian war poetry. It continues to resonate, an anthem to pub-goers everywhere and, in particular, to the Australian cricket team. In his West Indies Tour Diary, Steve Waugh writes of being drenched not only in champagne after wresting back the Frank Worrell Trophy in 1995, but in The immortal words: I left my heart to the sappers, round Khe Sanh. In so many ways they reflected the Australian working class ethic, but they didnt patronise the audience in any way either. They treated the audience with great respect and spoke to them intelligently, believing that the audience was understanding and identifying with that, says Michael Lawrence, now 35. He has just written a book - The Cold Chisel Story. People tend to view Australian music as very transient. They dont view Australian acts as being able to change a culture or have a huge effect on things. Perhaps the lyrics of Star Hotel, written about a 1979 riot in Newcastle after it was announced the hotel, a home for young workers and the unemployed, would be knocked down to make room for a car park, best reflect how firmly embedded Cold Chisel are in Australian mythology. As the walls came down at the star, Walker saw a culture divided in two. Here lies a local culture, Barnes whispers. Job queues grow through the land/An uncontrolled youth in Asia/Gonna make those fools understand. In the dying moments of the final Last Stand concert, as the sad, bluesy strains of Walkers The Partys Over washed over the Sydney Entertainment Centre, an angry young man was raised on someones shoulders in the crowd. On his T-shirt: There is no life after Cold Chisel. As they ride Last Wave of Summer around the country, Cold Chisel are showing there is. They are a different band, but they were a different band with every album they put out. People have got to understand that it isnt East, but Circus Animals isnt East either, says Lawrence. For Steve Preswitch, the pressure to relive the Chisel legend is not all-consuming. I guess after 15 years theres a lot of people waiting to hear particular things. We wouldnt want to disappoint them, (but) deep down I kind of had this feeling that everything was going to be fine. From day one we started rehearsing new songs and it was fairly obvious that we still had it. We thoroughly enjoy the chemistry we generate together. Cold Chisel play Melbourne Park again on Wednesday.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 11:56:13 +0000
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