|
Another Time-Another
Place
The Bushwackers Experience
Circa 1977-1980
Fitzroy, Melbourne
On any given Friday night in Melbourne between about 1977 and 1980, before Random Breath
Testing and noise regulations stifled our world-famous live music scene, you could go to
the
'Dan O'Connell Hotel' in Fitzroy and experience the legendary Bushwackers at their
fiery, venom-spitting and ever-endearing best.
It was as hot as hell
in the Dan O'Connell, even in winter, but you couldn't help being swept away by the crowd
and the music. There were moments in the show when the mob would respond by singing
'Skippy' and doing things that were equally incomprehensible to a first-timer in the
audience.
Somehow, 'The Bushwackers' would take you back to colonial days when a bloke was either
your mate or a policeman. Somehow it was no longer a crowded pub on a bleak night in
Melbourne, but a hot, dry patch of Queensland dirt in the middle of a drought -- or even a
hiding place during a shoot with the 'traps' in Victoria.
You were transported to
the worlds of the larrikin, the swaggie, those on the land, the grieving wife, the boy in
the trenches of Gallipolli.
The band would
challenge your politic too, at every turn. They forced you to take a side,
preferably for the worker or the oppressed, whoever and whenever they may be.
The Bushwackers were the first major Australian band to take a stand on issues such as
becoming a republic, ditching the Royal Family, adopting the Eureka flag and ending the
prohibition of marijuana.
Although the band's passionate music and strong
views no doubt combined to attract huge public support, there are simple factors more
powerful than either of these which caused the Bushwackers band to become a phenomenon.
|
