"Wanna be up, don't wanna be down.

 

Recently, I was enlisted by my Mother to DJ her wedding reception, and I spent hours compiling a journey that would quite deliberately drag the middle-aged crowd back into their youths. The only thing assured at a wedding is that people - even those who don't drink much, anymore - are all going to be plastered within the hour, creating a small opportunity, like a Brigadoon of the soul. They would arrive in their nicest clothes, their gritted smiles pretending they're still in love with their partners. They would pleasantly ask, "How have you been?", and even though they'd never really forgiven the recipient for stealing their boyfriends when they were 16, they would pretend to be glad when told, "I'm good."

But then, they would drink.

Youth may inevitably become murdered by pressing realities, more so than being merely grown out of; but somewhere, within, there is an adolescent in us all. In a prison of the mind, the 21 year-old who thought they were going to conquer the world, sits in the corner of a lonely cell. They may have been locked up by the disillusionment that sets in by the end of our twenties, but they are more than happy to break free, and delude us once more with all the things we're now supposedly too smart to indulge in. All the incarnations of our younger years - the dreamy schoolgirl, the invincible young man - are waiting in our jailed past. They're waiting for the key - for the moment you slip up, and give in to the regression. All they need is a memory. All they need is a song.

Within a couple of hours, the free champagne going down rather well, the rumble of Grease Lightning shook the wedding reception until the bars fell, and out came the prisoners of their past. They slurred stories about their first concerts, and how they were grounded for a month when they came home smelling of vodka. They did the Time Warp, again. They laughed, and danced, and remembered a world with much more hope than was left in the twenty-first century. Whaddya' know - girls just wanna have fun, after all.

The popular trend towards the television "retrospective" certainly knows what it's doing; but most of these revolve around current affairs (though not so current, anymore), playing off the regressive activation to be found in "Where were you when Diana died?" They're effective; but nothing can beat the power of music, the most subjective creative form there is (perhaps, with the exception of visual art; but not only is visual art nowhere near as accessible - we can take music everywhere with us - let's face it, art is dead for contemporary society). Music is so powerful because we can - and do - make it truly our own, soundtracking the narratives that make us who we are. Music makes the bourgeoisie and the rebel; and last night, on ABC, it made a sad and sweet portrait of a country and generation that, somewhere along the way, got a little lost. They rose to their feet - probably more than a few champagnes being consumed over civil conversations in the foyer, before the show - and they went to Funky Town. They hadn't been to Funky Town, for so very long.

I originally considered attending the Countdown Spectacular show, and in the end, decided against it. It seemed wrong to me, and I feared that instead of creating an experience that adequately evoked the past, I would be left to witness the cruel hands of time eroding once great performers of this country. Sometimes, the question, "Whatever happened to so and so?" is best left unanswered.

But having witnessed the ABC TV special, I must confess, I regret my decision. Don't get me wrong - some of them were as tragic as hell. But the decline of the vocal chords (and gravity) aside, regardless of how conscious I was of the psychodynamic at play, I couldn't help but fall victim to it. Some of the music was before my time, but as a boy, I quite liked going to Funky Town. I thought Eurogliders' Grace Knight was fabulous, and I can still remember sitting in the back-seat of road trips, as my parents sang along to their Australian Crawl tapes. I don't like where we are in the world, any more than the next sane person. And I can't stand modern R&B, or rap, or any of the other rubbish that kids listen to, these days. I can't believe I've reached a point where those words ("these kids?!") would fall from my mouth (or at least, be punched out on my keyboard), but there you go. What the hell is "Why don't you loosen up my buttons, babe"?! Yes, please, take me to Funky Town. Pronto.

The crowd shots were wonderful. It's no surprise that the audience were mostly women, but all in all, the punters were a relatively diverse crowd, drawn together by the one thing they all had in common... their age. Eyes that only hours before would have been the tired windows to a life that wasn't anything like they thought it was going to be, sparkled at the heroes of their adolescence. Forty year old, after forty year old, grinned like smitten school kids singing along to the bus radio on a school excursion. For three hours, they remembered why they loved their husbands, or perhaps remembered the one who got away. They thought their parents just, like, didn't understand them. They bought Smash Hits magazine, and stuck their favourite bands all over their folders. 

 

For this moment in time, they were no longer repressed into stiff, complacent personalities. The 12,000 strong crowd danced, and clapped, and didn't have to assert their maturity or dignity to anyone. They weren't there to be grown ups - the collective validated the moment by an awareness that this was, after all, a conscious stroll down memory lane. Hello, you didn't go to the Countdown Spectacular for any other reason. No doubt, they went home and resumed the pose; but for three hours in that entertainment centre, they were allowed to be somebody else - perhaps, in a way, someone closer to the truth not just of who they were, but who they still are.

I'm in two minds on whether it was for the best or not, but ABC cut what must have been the longest concert ever staged, fitting it nicely into a two hour package (without commercials). This meant that some songs were given merely a chorus to remind us, and though I'm pretty sure most artists would have been given more than just the one song, that's all we were given, at most. Admittedly, sometimes, a snippet was probably more than enough. But the downside to this was that we were only ever given the band or artist's biggest cliche, and I tend to be one of those quirky people who like all the songs, except that one big one they're famous for. It would have been nice to hear Pseudo Echo's "Beat For You" as well as going down to Funky Town, or to move beyond Chantoozie's "Wanna Be Up"; but to be fair, I can't say it wasn't just as good to hear those classics, and they served their purpose. It wasn't what was there, but rather that it constantly led me to yearn for the rest that wasn't there. "Wanna Be Up" made me think of "Witch Queen of New Orleans", but the need was left unsatisfied; we were left to make do with the one flashback from each performer.

 

Fortunately, the TV special also coincides with the release of both the CD and DVD. I don't really think it would work as an audio experience (the voices were certainly a little rusty, on the whole), but I'm now inclined to get my hands on a copy of the DVD, which contains over four hours of concert footage. I don't think I could do four hours straight; but to episodically revisit the artists' complete trips down memory lane is good enough reason for me to find a place in the DVD tower for the Countdown Spectacular.

Fortunately, some high points were left unedited. James' Reyne's acoustic rendition of Reckless was so good, it actually shifted the sentimental register of the audience (albeit for a brief moment)  towards something that defied memory lane. Reyne's voice and presence is still compelling, after all these years; although admittedly, unlike many of the performers, Reyne has continued to perform over the years, and there was a marked difference between those who are in this league, and those who had clearly been drawn out of oblivion to pick up the microphone for the first time in God knows how long.

The other great thing about owning the DVD is that I never have to choose to end the evening on Sherbet. Sorry, but having missed out on Sherbet (and never having a parent as a fan to put me through them), to me, Daryl Braithwaite means one thing... Horses. Enough said. The climax - cheap fireworks and all - left me cold, and only vaguely remembering "Summer Love" as a song I've rarely heard, nor want to, in future.

But for what it was worth, still a tad hung over from the beginning of the Christmas party rounds (where there'll be quite a few drunken excursions down memory lane, I'd imagine), the Countdown Spectacular made my Saturday night in a whole lot more stimulating than I'd anticipated. When it was over, I was left with a strange feeling: the bittersweet joy I ultimately find when walking down memory lane, a space where innocence and corruption, optimism and disillusionment, are somehow inseparable. Remembering the good times tends to hurt human beings, slightly - something that says much more about now, than it does, then. Some things we should be glad we've lost. But sometimes we need reminding of the things we probably should have kept. There's a little bit of Countdown in us all, I should imagine; and personally, I find that a great relief.

 

So, let's thank the music. It makes the people come together - and God knows they need to.