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Arizona_Girl
Lieutenant
Ducky
| Joined: | Mon Jun 22nd, 2009 |
| Location: | Mesa, Arizona USA |
| Posts: | 925 |
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Off Deck
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#1 Posted: Mon Jun 22nd, 2009 11:48 pm |
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Watching an Aussie movie is always hit and miss (at least to me ) I'll confess right now, that I'm not a big fan of Aussie cinema ( I hated "Looking for Alibrandi" for example even though everyone else was raving about it and I have yet to sit through "Australia" even though everyone in my department at work has seen it. Their general consensus was "Oh it's Ok, the first twenty minutes are pretty awful though")
So, I sat down on my sofa, snacks in hand to watch a movie about an Aussie rock and roll band trying to crack it big. Now this is something close to my heart. I've played in bands for years, I've stormed off stage (oh yes indeed, I had my prima donna moments; after a particularly disastrous gig in Cronulla in 1975, I punched our keyboard player right in the nose. The crowd went wild . Biggest cheer we had actually, it was much better entertainment than our music)
But about 45-50 minutes into the film, I said to myself "Now this is BS" Musos don't act that way, the dynamics were all wrong, the interplay and electricity that just HAPPENS in a band was missing. I realised that I was watching actors playing musos. Fair enough, but it all seemed so bogus to me. And the script was bad, bad bad. The acting even worse.
But then again, I never took drugs when in the band, so maybe through the eyes of our bass player, the drummer and the lead guitarist, this would have seemed like their life story up on screen.
As a sidenote, many years ago I went to see a musical play at the Seymour Centre in Sydney. It was called "Living in the Seventies" about a Sydney band who never escape their suburban roots and end up playing a sad succession of scout halls and RSL clubs. The blurb was interesting; the fictional band in the play had the same name was had. Imagine my surprise when I looked at the credits and saw the name of the playwright; a girl I once knew from my school who would often attend our gigs. Never really said much to her in those years, she'd come and go and was one of our (few) regular "fans".
Bottom line; I watched in fascination and embarrassment as a very close approximation of my bands short career was played out on stage to hundreds of people every night. The fights, the drunk rehearsals, the petty squabbling, the drummer who always turns up late with yet another girlfriend in tow, the crowd of three people who turn up to watch you perform on a wet Saturday night in a god forsaken Sydney suburb. The names of the band members were just slight variations of our own. I was thinking "Bloody hell, how does she remember that?" It was the best nights entertainment I had ever had.
I was laughing so hard, when to my utter delight (or was it shame?) the band on stage launched into a perfect parody of the only song we ever played in our real band which had choreography; complete with bad dance moves and attempts to be "groovy" (hey it was set in 1974-75) . It was a virtual time machine for me .
At least I can vouch for the authenticity of that play :)
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