Robert Forster and his Swedish Band meet at the intersection of seasons, generations, locales and personal histories.
September 12 marks the first time in a long time us Melbourne folk have had some semblance of Queensland weather. I can’t help but think the clouds and curtains have parted just for tonight’s incandescent Robert Forster soundtrack.
Thornbury Theatre is the befitting venue for this spectacle. It is a venue containing multitudes, the re-appropriation of intentions: having begun its life as a stage to present films and vaudeville acts, coming of age as a ballroom, maturing into a reception hall for weddings and events before rejuvenating itself as a live venue. Tonight, the theatre finds itself the ultimate meeting place.
The band suit up and get to work. The second track off Forster’s 2025 release Strawberries — Tell It Back to Me — is the first to kick us off. The opening lyric?
‘When I met you I was through with some business I had to do / Business of a strange kind’.
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I feel kinship with the quite literal interpretation of this. I find myself here with my own business of a strange kind to do; a teenage-dream sort of business, one where I am tasked with enjoying a show chock-a-block full of my favourite musicians in order to write this very gig review.
I recollect a quote from Lindy Morrison, drummer of The Go-Betweens and personal icon of my life. She’d proclaimed, upon the band’s grinding halt:
“The only people who liked us were a fistful of wanky journalists and students”. I am proud to find kinship in this camp tonight.
I’m accompanied by a new friend of mine, Tass Coomber of local bands The Mundaynes and The Great Australian Bank. We were introduced through a mutual friend who’d recognised us both as unabashed Australian music aficionados.
The first question I’d ever asked him?
“What are your two favourite Australian bands?”
His response is likely why our friendship has surpassed the smoker’s area of the John Curtin Hotel; The Go-Betweens and The Triffids.
We find ourselves stunned, then, to hear Forster’s anecdote regarding Good To Cry.
The bluebirds which soar in the sky on an island off Mackay are revealed to be intended seabirds; a nod to their Western Australian associates The Triffids’ track of the same name.
Forster admits he’d mistakenly sung the wrong species in too good of a take, and so the bluebirds remained perched. It’s unsurprising that he has let the slip-up fly, considering his long-standing penchant for them dating all the way back to The Go-Betweens’ 16 Lovers Lane.
No bother — one still finds themselves tasting the salt of many familiar earths. Forster indulges us in a performance fit with Good To Cry’s original lyric; a meagre, yet profoundly treasured detail.
The brackish breeze of the single indeed ‘brushes by’ for us all to trip and tumble to.
When a song is delightful, one can’t help but jubilantly give in to involuntary movements — the band themselves setting this very precedent.
Peter Morén’s stage presence reflects the very vitality of the new album. Where in the latest release characters embody their verbs, frenzied and dishevelled, careening through the streets on bikes and whipped by the wind, Morén jogs on the spot, kicks the very air — his destination unknown, open to all possibilities.
The flock of devout fans becomes a sea in and of itself, lulling, rising, crashing, a response to the transference of energy the band provides.
Magnus Olsson rolls with the punches of Lindy Morrison’s drumming style.
It is no easy feat; for it is one which has been described by Forster himself as “… [riding] every queer-timed riff and roll[ing] on every chorus … put to her”. As Morrison compares the act of drumming to dancing, it should come as no surprise that the stage is so alive.
The mutual adoration for one another’s work is evident. Everything is shared, interchangeable — harmonicas, knowing glances — Forster inviting his Swedish companions to partake in the joys of his home country, his world, as they reciprocated in Strawberries’ recording process, undertaken at Stockholm’s INGRID studios.
I find Tass and me conducting the same sort of charitable exchange. We give each other offerings of Go-Betweens facts, these very references playing out through the setlist and becoming in-jokes between us.
Forster collectively lets the audience into the Alteglofsheim farmhouse of his ’90s — the calm after the storm of the band’s breakup — reminiscent of having the door to his home kitchen opened to us on Strawberries. It’s akin to being made privy to an open secret still held close to your chest, warm and alive.
The junction of generations resolutely converges when Streets of Your Town rolls onto High Street.
In an earlier interview I’d conducted with Forster, he’d mentioned it being “… a great compliment when I hear people reference The Go-Betweens and myself … It’s fantastic”.
It is evident he was earnest in his sentiments — this sense of gratitude in finding a home in other musicians’ work — when he surprised us all by singing the non-lexical vocable off Italian house group Milky’s Just The Way You Are, their debut single from 2002 which sampled The Go-Betweens’ 1988 hit.
Tass cops another ecstatic nudge and we give each other a knowing look. We throw our heads back with a grin, the sort of grin which leaves your cheeks sore; the sort of euphoric affliction that parallels the bittersweet reflections on love Forster colours with his lyricism.
It is not the only surprise Robert Forster and the Swedish band have in store for us.
Straight out of a reminisce is the one-woman-brass-band that is Lina Langendorf. Having never heard her play, never having incorporated a saxophone in his discography before, Forster took a chance that paid off.
She’s a fan favourite; her name echoes through the theatre as much as the inevitable holler for an encore.
It is, in fact, the track Surfing Magazines off The Go-Betweens’ comeback album The Friends of Rachel Worth which cruises in at the crest of this very encore; itself a revival of performance. The track is one of great sentimentality, sung and stung with nostalgia.
Forster stands ‘on the headland / taking in the scene’, saluting each of our respective landmarks in the tune’s last refrain, from Bells Beach to Margaret River. He solidifies himself as one of the great cartographers of the coast.
The gig is mythological in the same way Forster himself has fabled the quilt-work of suburbs, weather patterns and band members that have long made his career. The crowd too, proof of legendary status.
A peer over my shoulder reveals the formidable Mick Harvey; a pause before the theatre entrance sparks a conversation with much-adored comedian and fellow cinema aficionado Alexei Toliopoulos. All are here to pay their respects.
Behind the merchandise table is Forster’s brother, an accountant from a whole other world; yet a world now exchanged with that of his sibling’s as one would cigarettes, lit up by another through a shared flame.
The indulgence continues
The gig ends — as all good things do — but I can’t get enough. On Monday, I am indulging in Peter Morén’s intimate solo show at the Merri Creek Tavern.
Once again, the old and new converge on one setlist: Paris 2004 off Peter Bjorn and John’s Writer’s Block from 2006 breathing the same air as an unreleased track from his current solo project SunYears.
Recognisable here — as with Saturday’s gig — is the camaraderie amongst the indie luminaries. Matthew Sigley of The Earthmen is opening, his bandmate Scott Stevens as much a part of the audience as he is a longstanding collaborator.
The Swedish band are here too: Jonas Thurell and Magnus Olsson, with Thurell openly admitting the vulnerability exposed in the gig’s improvisational spirit. Musical keys are thrown from wing to wing. The pair interchange positions from stage to crowd, admirer to artist: across everything, active and enthusiastic participation. The podium of an elevated stage is demolished. Morén parts the sea: meandering through the dense crowd, only tethered by a guitar lead.
To witness the affecting gestures of mutual respect between band and audience alike is incredibly inspiriting. Nothing is hidden — everything revealed under the stage lights’ incandescence — and man oh man, is it radiant.
There is so much kinship in a shared experience; live music the ultimate vessel. It is extraordinarily touching to be a part of.
On a Facebook group entitled Right Here: The Go-Betweens Appreciation Society, home to 11,300 devout members and counting (Peter Morén and every past member of The Go-Betweens bar Robert Forster amongst them), it isn’t unusual to see the very musicians being celebrated partake in discussions with fans.
Morén posts updates of his time in Australia for us all to gush at.
Lindy Morrison can be found asking for the link to tickets for his solo show in Newtown, Sydney, then days later posing for a photo with fellow time-keeper Olsson.
The group is a virtual scrapbook of newspaper clippings. There lies a gossip column, a classifieds section, a marketplace, an active archive, a meet-and-greet.
For one, having seen Morén’s solo show declared ‘sold out’, I’d posted a last-minute request for a resale ticket on behalf of a friend. Morén himself, ever the gentleman, personally reaches out to Matthew Sigley and sources one for her so that we can both share in the common ground of Merri Creek Tavern.
The departure of Robert Forster and the Swedish band from Victorian soil to the white sands of Queensland feels like triumphantly passing on the baton.
Brisbane — the final leg of the Australian tour — has much to look forward to, and we Melburnians are the all-seeing-eye presently basking in the prophecy. I am truly excited for everyone involved.
It is no wonder the Swedish band, Robert Forster and Lina Langendorf have all found each other so organically; continue to be found in one another’s audiences, comment sections and the hearts of many here and abroad.
Forster wasn’t kidding when he expressed to me all the way back in July — “I’m very much interested in new places, new people, new cities” — and you know what?
I am very much interested to see all the new places they will continue to go together.
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