I arrive at Melbourne Zoo slightly tardy, as I often did when I worked retail in the Melbourne Zoo gift store, entering the grounds as James Reyne and band kicked off their set, the delightfully beefy PA booming across families nestled on picnic rugs, parents nursing craft beer cans, lions periodically rumbling out of frame. I’m briefly nostalgic, wistful for my old workplace, having finished here almost two years ago to the day.
Australian Crawl disbanded in 1986, six years after forming, and one year before I was born, their back catalogue permeating into the national cultural conscience. Brilliant songs, perhaps burdened in some sense, at some stage, by FM rock radio ubiquity, ripe for newfound appreciation in an era where cultural cringe is, thankfully, subsided.
Reyne looks fit and has a strange, reluctant affectation for these songs, regaling the audience with Shut Down, most definitely one of Australian Crawl’s weaker hits but by no means terrible, with a preface of genuine self-deprecation; a sentiment echoed (“This is a crappy song, ladies and gentlemen”) before a solo piano rendition of Hoochie Gucci Fiorucci Mama.When stripped to its core, away from its garish power ballad sheen, it’s a solid composition despite its silly title.
It’s a deftly crafted greatest hits set, steadily gaining momentum, Reyne introducing Downhearted with acoustic guitar, full band gradually building. His voice is in fine form, the pub rock grunt of yore now more dextrous, feathering a higher register akin to Neil Young at times.
The iconic bass and groggy kick drum intro to Reckless is delivered sans banter, the eerie classic, one of Australia’s best, resonating across a sky strewn with visible stars, unimpeded by light pollution. The emotional impact of the song is hard to transpose live, here relayed dutifully.
“This is a Guns N Roses cover,” Reyne bemuses. “It may or may not have inspired Guns N Roses, we’ll never know,” before Unpublished Critics, some in the audience compounding the songs similarities with Gunners’ Sweet Child O Mine sing-a-longs, which overstayed its novelty by a chorus or two.
As the 9.30pm curfew approached, the greatest hits got greater, Things Don’t Seem,an outright corker, suffixed by some Thin Lizzy’s Boys Are Back In Town guitar harmonies, into Boys Light Up closing the main portion of the set (funnily enough, video screens declaring The Zoo as a no-smoking venue before the encore, in case anyone actually felt compelled to light up), with the band quickly dashing back on stage for Daughters Of The Northern Coast.
These songs may be perceived as naff to some degree, but they’re important songs, here performed by a loud rock band through a loud PA in an idyllic setting. My relationship with these songs is ill-defined, resting in my subconscious, only paying appreciation in recent years, maybe tokenistic of a cautious patriotism, maybe just a realisation that these are great rock songs, plain and simple.
BY LACHLAN KANONIUK
Loved: Classics on classics on classics.
Hated: Failing to land prime viewing real estate.
Drank: N/A.
