In praise of a thoroughly decent dude
Ihave had the pleasure of meeting Sir Dave Dobbyn a few times and the massive privilege of once introducing him on a stage. I have spent money on his records and concerts, and countless hours listening to his music. Not a cent or minute has been wasted.
New Year and Queen’s Birthday honours are strange things. At times they are not the meritocracy that the general public would be expected to believe. They are a strange combination of who is inclined to take the time and effort to nominate, the political inclination of the awarding committee, and cases presented that simply speak for themselves.
Politicians are massively overrepresented in the awards for merely doing an extremely well-paid job that confers financial benefits that last the rest of their lives. We don’t seem to have the likes of Lord Shaftesbury (who really did help with child poverty in Britain) or William Wilberforce in our political class.
However, Sir Dave transcends all of the nonsense and has been a positive and transformative force in New Zealand for 40 years, and married to the same beautiful woman since 1983. Many of his songs are anthems and the wonderful Dudes lead singer, Peter Urlich, calls
the national anthem. I cannot think it will be ever used before a test match, but to be at an event when it is played does lead to a hand-on-heart emotion.
In a different time and probably setting, in a lag effect of the 1981 Springbok tour, a series of events around a Dudes concert – cancelled at the last minute – led to the infamous Queen St riots of 1984. Sir Dave was implicated through alleged comments from the stage – and exonerated. It is a part of what credits him as a human being that recovering from such an event added to his character.
As someone who was born nine years later than Sir Dave, and who came to appreciate music from the late 1970s, to me he is a metonym for the development of the whole New Zealand rock scene: the distinctive Australasian lead guitar sound, the idiosyncratic vocal timbre and drawl, the incredible enthusiasm of our drummers, and the ability to capture and create the feel of the nation.
It is known to be incredibly hard to make a living as any form of performance artist in New Zealand. When the income levels of graduates from our universities are published, those leaping into the performing arts fields are so far behind engineers that it appears they are looking for crumbs from the table.
Sir Dave acknowledged this to some extent by ironically naming his 1999 compilation album
Many of our greats have seen how small the New Zealand market is and looked to break through in Australia and further afield – occasionally with real success such as Split Enz’
Of course, Lorde with smashed it out of the park with a US No1. OMC’s did pretty well too in 1995-96, and there have been others.
Sir Dave is a testament to the value of loving what you do, persisting, improving over time, standing above all forms of politics, and caring for people as well as the power of music.
The times that I met him, he seemed incredibly modest. If you come across him and he says, ‘‘Just Dave, thanks,’’ please refuse. He is ‘‘Sir Dave’’ and a most worthy knight.