Vika & Linda at Recital Centre: A Christmas ‘record you could dance to’
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28.11.2022

Vika & Linda at Recital Centre: A Christmas ‘record you could dance to’

Words by Joanne Brookfield

Christmas morning in the Bull family household goes like this: music is turned on first thing in the morning. “Whoever gets up first gets to pick what they put on the stereo. Usually it’s Dad and usually it’s Judith Durham, that’s his favourite record,” says Vika Bull.

While Vika and sister Linda have enjoyed that as a family tradition for the past five decades, when they started putting together their Christmas album earlier this year they were both clear about wanting “to make a record you could dance to”.

Music, singing and performance have been an intrinsic part of the Bull sisters lives, from childhood when singing in church with their Tongan mother, to coming to fame as iconic members of the Black Sorrows. They’ve appeared on number-one albums by Paul Kelly, Kasey Chambers and John Farnham, as well as a slew of their own studio and live, chart-topping releases.

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However, in a successful career spanning three and a half decades, where their sound – which traverses rock, country, gospel, reggae, R&B, soul and blues, whilst drawing on their rich Tongan heritage – has seen them become living legends of the Australian music scene, they hadn’t recorded a Christmas album.

So in February of this year, they decked the studio with some tinsel and together with producer Cameron Bruce (keyboards) and the Vika & Linda band featuring Ben Hauptmann (guitars), Richard Bradbeer (bass) and Lachlan O’Kane (drums), they knocked out ‘Gee Whiz, It’s Christmas!’

 

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The album cover features a photo of the two as children visiting Santa in Doncaster Shopping Centre back in the 1970s. Linda found the photo when she was trawling through other family archives when they were writing their new memoir, No Bull, which was published in October.

‘Gee Whiz, It’s Christmas!’ dropped earlier this month, with the first single being their take on Tom Petty’s ‘Christmas All Over Again’. It typifies the rest of the songlist, because if you’re after Jingle Bells and Little Drummer Boys, or playing Whamageddon this year, there’s no ‘Last Christmas’ cliched-style ballads. “We knew we didn’t want to do that,” says Linda.

“We just wanted to make a Christmas record you could dance to. Something to dance to while you’re cooking lunch on Christmas Day. A joyous record, something to make people happy. And we didn’t want to do the obvious songs,” she continues.

Instead, there’s Slade’s 1973 UK chart-topper ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’, a rollicking take on Wizzard’s glam rock gem ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day’, as well as a couple of Bull family favourites – ‘Blue Christmas’, which Elvis recorded in 1957, and ‘Please Come Home For Christmas’, which was recorded by Willie Nelson, another one of their Dad’s favourite singers. (Keeping it in the family is also the fact that Linda’s daughter Kiki does backing vocals on their version of The Staple Singers’ ‘Last Month Of The Year’.)

The sisters say they had quite a long list of possible songs to begin with. “We picked our favourites, and then the band chimed in, so John suggested the Ray Charles song ‘Spirit of Christmas’ and then Cameron loves the Ramones Christmas song [‘Merry Christmas, (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)’], so that got a guernsey. Everyone in the band and our management put all their favourites in and that’s how we decided,” explains Vika.

Backed by a seven-piece band, Vika and Linda will be centre stage and bringing the album to life for a very special one-off Christmas show on Friday 2 December at the Melbourne Recital Centre.

Despite having played every type of gig imaginable over their illustrious career (which was recognised with them being awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honours earlier this year, for their service to the performing arts) they say playing the Recital Centre for the first time on their own is “nervewracking”.

“It’s really good, because we went and saw Colin Hay the other night, and we got to sit in the chairs, and they’re really comfortable. So you know, we know that the audience will be comfortable,” says Vika.

“It’s a brand new show, we haven’t done a Christmas show before, we haven’t performed the songs live before, so you know, there’s a lot of things…” she catches herself and then bursts out laughing, causing her sister to do the same and jump in on the riff.

“Hey, it’s gonna be great!” Linda says, spluttering with laughter. “We haven’t played the songs, we haven’t played the venue, but we’ve sat in the chairs! We don’t know what it’s going to be like, but hey, you’ll be comfortable!”

With these two on the mic, there’s no doubt you’ll be entertained in what they’re wanting to be just like the album itself – a joyous ninety minutes of festive cheer that will have you up dancing.

Vika & Linda – Gee Whiz, it’s Christmas! is happening on Friday 2 December 2022 at 7.30pm at Melbourne Recital Centre’s Elisabeth Murdoch Hall. Buy tickets here.