I was a teenager in the 1980s and, in many ways, my taste in music is still influenced by the iconic bands/artists of the era - U2, The Cure, The Police, Dire Straits, Joy Division, Talking Heads, Madness, Rick Astley (see what I did there). In Australia we had Men at Work, Midnight Oil, Australian Crawl, Cold Chisel, Hoodoo Gurus, Crowded House, Hunters and Collectors, The Church but, in my opinion, the greatest of all was Icehouse. Iva Davies' mullet was as superb as his songwriting and I couldn't get enough of their "Man of Colours" album.
In the 80s I also made 6 solid, and as it turns out, lifelong friends. The seven of us believed that we were hot stuff and terminally misunderstood in our East Coast rural community. High School was something that we had to endure until our "real" lives took off and we were recognised by the world as the marvellous and humourous individuals that we really were. It actually turns out that we were self-important, naive twerps but who isn't at that age?
Recently, five of us got together to attend a very nostalgic Icehouse concert at Hobart's Wrest Point Casino. We had a very demure and sophisticated drink in our rooms, well, that's what we all told our kids and partners anyway. It is the great thing about being a middle-aged women, no-one ever suspects you of misbehaving - it is very liberating.
The warm-up act was the Ange Boxall Trio. I am usually a big fan of Ange but she seemed a little out of place in my nostalgic journey back in time and her version of Jolene just made me want to hear The Wilson Pickers' version.
Then the main act was on. Iva was fabulous and I suspect that each of us secretly wanted to take him back to our room for a drink. I didn't know that I knew so many Icehouse songs. Every song seemed to be one that I knew the best and my very favourite. Then they played 'Nothing Too Serious' and I was on my feet and 16 again. It brought the house down. The anthems of my adolescence rolled on and on and it seemed that there would be no end to the transportation back in time.
But end it did and none of us wanted to break to the reverie so we headed to the Onyx Bar. The Catch Club were playing other great 80's classics like Australian Crawl's "Boys Light Up". I never knew that that is what James Reyne was actually saying. The band was average at best but it really hit the mark for us. Watching my friends singing and dancing in the bar not giving two hoots about what others might think and, by doing so, inspiring others to let their hair down and enjoy the evening, I was struck but how lucky I was to have such wonderfully strong women as lifelong friends. As Iva and his boys would say - "She takes possession, she has control. Next to you I can touch the fire".
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