An undiminished Jimmy Barnes had fans on their feet for this classic
Jimmy Barnes ★★★
Palais Theatre, June 13
When I was a child, I got a Jimmy Barnes CD out of a packet of muesli bars. I didn't have a CD player, so I just had to imagine what it might sound like.
I already had enough Barnesy in my blood to have a good guess. His songs are part of the Australian collective unconscious. They play in our dreams. They give them away in muesli bar packets.
Barnes is now touring his 21st studio album, Defiant. A few hours before he took to the stage, it went to No. 1 in the album charts. It's his 15th No.1 album (19th if you count Cold Chisel). He plays virtually all of that record tonight. His gruff yarl is undiminished by age and recent heart surgery.
However, the new songs – gruff pub rock beasts about struggle and defiance – struggle themselves. The essence is all here, but the lyrics are a bit live-laugh-love ('It's a new day / I can feel the sun shining down on me').
It all buckles under the weight of a nine-piece band. Songs like The Long Road and Dig Deep are rote, mid-tempo, middle-of-the-road Barnesy. They could have come out any time since 1991. Album opener That's What You Do For Love gives it all a lift (possibly because it reminds me of Born To Run).
Taken all at once, it's a slog. The audience waits (mostly) patiently, as the new material is scattered with familiar stuff like Choirgirl and I'd Die To Be Alone With You Tonight.
It's when the opening piano of Flame Trees kicks in that everything changes. 'A real one,' my friend says. The crowd stand up en masse. People join in on the second line. By the chorus, it's a choir. 'But oh,' he sings, 'who needs that sentimental bullshit, anyway?' It's a beautiful song about the past escaping from us.
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