Mick Jagger, still performing, exceedingly well, according to my friends who have seen recent concerts, is 73.
It’s all about performing rock music in your 60s and 70s these days. So many Dunedin bands I grew up with have had reunion gigs in recent years. They all seem to be fabulously successful, a wonderful time is had by all, nostalgia the inevitable wrapping paper. Songs throw you back to a time when you first heard them, and songs being so amazing, that is a lovely space to be thrown back into.
The Bend came through Dunedin 10 days before Christmas, and although I knew only a handful of the songs, I knew the people well. Fane Flaws, Tony Backhouse and Peter Dasent were in The Crocodiles, whose Tears was New Zealand’s Song Of The Year in 1980. In and around that page on their CVs, these three had been in Mammal, Blerta and The Spats, Backhouse had become premier writer and arranger of an acappella gospel group in Australasia, Dasent and Flaws wrote music for Peter Jackson films and a score of others, and Flaws and Dasent did the platinum-selling Underwatermelon Man DVD. Did I mention Flaws is also an outstanding painter? Renaissance men all.
They called former Garageland member Andy Gladstone their teenage drummer. He was born in 1967, which Flaws assured us was the best year in the history of music, reeling off dozens of significant records that came out that year.
The Bend favour house concerts, 50 or 60 people, people actually listening, so Purple Rain was a perfect venue. Flaws was an amusing raconteur as he took us through the band members’ many musical projects. He boasted of his Australian career, Tears having given him the fame to get signed. He made an album which remains to this day the worst-selling release in the history of Mushroom Records.
All the Crocodilesstayed in Australia for a considerable time, Jenny Morris doing particularly well, though Backhouse’s work with acappella groups made him a legend in that field. Tim Finn rates him the best vocal arranger he has ever met, Sam Neill says he is a natural treasure, The Bend had some very good songs. I could be cynical, and unfair and call it Wellington music, by which I mean funk riffs are never far away and the music is almost brandishly difficult and yet accessible and utterly danceable always. Backhouse and Flaws remain huge fans of Zappa and XTC. One riveting dancer soon appeared stage front, and as I was sitting beside that space, so I can see facial expressions, vital, I was soon being beckoned on to the dance floor with inviting fingers. I shook my head vigorously, which must have presented a sight almost as fine as the one on stage, writhing dancer beckoning, unco-ordinated man holding up hand like traffic policeman and nodding head negatively. I apologised to her afterwards. I told her I had just come out of hospital with a bad leg. She said that was such a sweet thing to say.
The Bend played for three hours. This was in the middle of seven concerts in seven days, from Christchurch down to Gore, through Wanaka and Queenstown, finishing in Nelson. Phew. Flaws is both exhausted and exhilarated at the end. These are songs you can not play sitting in a chair.
People come up to chat. The talk is about getting, or more often, not getting, lucky breaks in the music game. How you just keep writing and playing and touring.
Sweat is dripping off Flaws’ face. He looks very happy. 65 going on 18. Backhouse, too, I recall, had not stopped smiling all night.
"I tell you," Flaws confides.
"There is one thing I remember about The Beatles, right back at the start. I was watching a film of them playing then, there was just SO much JOY! Just so much JOY!"
- Roy Colbert is a Dunedin writer.
