That is about to change, however, as the band have been given the headlining spot on the bill for the 17th version of the annual festival, in late November, alongside such other luminaries of the Aussie music biz as John Butler Trio, Spiderbait, The Screaming Jets and plenty more. Double bassist, backing vocalist and co-founding member Scott Owen, is very happy to be breaking the band’s QMF duck.
“Yeah, bloody oath man,” he enthuses. “I haven’t actually been to the Queenscliff Music Festival before. It’s always been on my radar; I used to spend a lot of time down at Point Lonsdale and Andy (drummer Andy Strachan) used to live down in that neck of the woods as well. I always stumble across the ads for it, and the lineup’s always pretty great, and from what I understand it’s a pretty cool festival, just how it’s all set up all round the town. Sounds like fun!”
The good people of Queenscliff, and punters from all over the country, can expect a typical rocking and rollicking good set from Australia’s favourite punk and rockabilly-infused rock band, taking in all the hits and material from most if not all of their albums.
“Look, we’ll just do sort of a bit of everything,” he informs us. “Just like we normally do. When we play festivals, it’s all about trying to write a setlist that’s going to please everybody. It’s not your own crowd, it’s a curious crowd!” he laughs. “So yeah, we tend to just throw in a bit of everything. Just play the songs that we consider to be the crowdpleasers. It’s not the type of gig where we’re going to jump up and go all experimental or anything. So we’ll just get up there and do our thing.”
That said, after their retrospective tour of last year where they played entire albums from their back catalogues in single shows across the nation, they may actually throw a few unexpected tunes in here and there.
“Because we did the tour that we did last year, the Retrospective Tour, where we played every album in each city, our repertoire has expanded to every song that we’ve ever recorded. So we may be able to throw in a few surprises.
“There were songs (on the Retrospective Tour) that we hadn’t played since the records came out,” he continues. “It was a spinout man, playing those songs again. It puts you back in that frame of mind when they were recorded – the gigs that we were doing when those records came out. All those memories came flooding back.”
After many years of hard work, the band are pretty much taking things a bit more slowly and easily at the moment. And deservedly so. But The Living End fans need not worry, they still plan to write, record and tour as a band again in the not too distant future.
“Look, there’s always new songs kicking around,” he says. “When we get together and get into the rehearsal room, there’s always something that comes out. But we haven’t got any plans to do anything with it yet. We’re all living in different parts of the planet now, and doing a few other things ourselves. It’s been a pretty full-on slog for us over the years, and it’s good to step back and take some perspective every now and then.
“So that’s where we’re at, at the moment. But, we still love playing together and we’re still keen to keep making music, so it’ll happen one day. I just don’t know when.”
BY ROD WHITFIELD
