PARTY TIME AT MOUNT DUNEED
WHEN the machine started up again, Geelong was ready.
More than 4000 people showed up at Mount Duneed Estate on Saturday to mark the rebirth of Victoria’s live music industry.
Coronavirus made 2020 a tough year for musos, roadies, hospitality and event workers and live music lovers. But, judging by the mood on the hill at the Waurn Ponds winery, it’s fair to say Victorians are ready to party again in 2021 — albeit with lots of sanitiser and social distancing, and a mask always at the ready.
“How bloody good is this? Live music is back,” gushed Missy Higgins when she headlined the 2021 Sounds Better Together concert.
Higgins closed her hourlong set with the first live performance of her latest single When The Machine Starts, followed by rousing renditions of crowd favourites The Special Two and Scar.
The new number, she said, was a “lockdown song”, written in her garden early last year when Victoria’s hard line restrictions seemed like a “novelty”.
Later, the reality set in, and the singer-songwriter started to wonder when she would next get the chance to play to a live audience.
She told the Mount Duneed Estate crowd she scratched her itch to perform by playing gigs on social media and morning TV, often in her pyjamas.
“It’s just so nice to play (to a live audience again),” she said.
“It isn’t the same to play to the back of your phone in your bedroom.
“It’s so bloody good to be here playing to real humans.”
Pyjamas wouldn’t have been so out of place on the Mount Duneed Estate stage.
Thirteen months earlier, 20,000 music fans saw Elton John tread the same boards in a sequined dressing gown, while Tones And I made a fashion statement of her own on Saturday.
Performing before Higgins, the chart-topper strode out wearing a Victoria Bitter cap, pink tie-dye tracksuit and socks without shoes.
Her set list included unique covers of OutKast’s Hey Ya! and Alphaville’s Forever Young — for the “older people” — alongside originals Bad Child and Johnny Run Away.
Funny and self-effacing, she closed her set with crowd favourite Dance Monkey followed by her personal favourite Fly Away, which, earlier that day, was voted No 58 in the annual Triple J Hottest 100.
Saturday’s concert was the first of this week’s 2021 Sounds Better Together series.
Backed by music promoter Michael Gudinski’s Mushroom Group and the state government’s tourism arm, shows are being held across regional Victoria and Melbourne to kickstart the live music industry, and test social distancing and crowd control protocols.
Mount Duneed Estate was capped at a capacity of 5000 for Saturday’s gig, with plastic seats spaced neatly and strategically on the lawn.
The venue’s next big gig will be Midnight Oil’s Makarrata Live show on March 20.
Channel 9 will air a TV special this Saturday at 7.30pm featuring highlights from the Mount Duneed gig as well as other concerts featuring favourite Aussie artists in this week’s 2021 Sounds Better Together series.