Live Review by loretta de Haan 03/10/19
October 04, 2019
After three sold out NZ shows, Jimmy Barnes brought his massive Shutting Down Your Town tour back to Australia this week, kicking off at WIN Entertainment Centre in Wollongong last night with special guests, Aussie rockers JET who got the rock n roll party started with a blistering set of hit songs including – She’s a Genius, Roll Over DJ, Cold Hard Bitch. Getting towards the end of the set we hear that familiar beat of the tambourine followed by that bass riff, drum beat, guitar riff, Nic Cester’s scream “Go” as they rip into their smash hit ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’. . .”So one, two, three, take my hand and come with me, because you look so fine, that I really wanna make you mine”
Jet reformed a few years ago and have just started a reunion run of shows as special guests for Jimmy’s ‘Shutting Down Your Town’ tour and it looked like they were having fun up there on the big stage and glad to be back playing again. There is talk that they may get together during this month with the intention of writing some new material, let’s hope they do! They finished the set with the aptly titled ‘Rip It Up’ because that’s just what they did, warming the stage up nicely for Jimmy.
Looking at the huge crowd filling up the arena I think Barnesy had really ‘shut down our town’ as it looked like all of Wollongong was there. Jimmy has spoken about how appreciative he is of the Wollongong and fans from the surrounding area, how loyal they have been going back to the early years, following them when Chisel was just starting out and continuing to support them when they became big. It is for this reason that Jimmy will always come back to us. How lucky are we!
The stage goes dark and the intro starts playing – ‘Goin’ Out West’ – a song by Tom Waits that Jimmy covers. Soon dark figures appear on stage and take their place, well dark except for some pretty shimmering of dresses from the back up singers. Hey I’m a girl and I notice these things! Lights come on and Jimmy takes to the stage dressed all in Black, well I’m glad I got the memo cause I am also dressed all in Black, as is my friend. How rock are we! Jimmy kicks off the night with ‘Driving Wheels’ and is already pacing the stage like a caged animal, grunting and screaming like only Jimmy can. “I’m in a bad mood” Jimmy snarls as he belts into that song from his latest album ‘My Criminal record.’ Well the crowd is certainly not in a bad mood, how could you be when you are watching one of Australia’s finest rock n roll legends. In fact I’m sure if you looked up the definition of legend in the dictionary it would say. . . Jimmy Barnes. Next up is another newie ‘Stolen Car’ before belting into an oldie ‘Ride The Night Away’ from Jimmy’s second studio album ‘For The Working Class Man’ After this Jimmy introduces us to brothers Lachy and Clayton Doley who have been smashing it on the keys and organ. Wow what a team they make. . .amazingly talented! No time for a breath as Jimmy jumps into the first of a few Cold Chisel classics we will hear during the night, ‘Khe Sanh’ that features duel guitar solos from son in law Ben Rodgers and Danny Spencer, who Jimmy has described as like a son. They are both exceptional guitarists! Finally Jimmy stops long enough to say hello, well actually it was a “How the fuck are you?” with the crowd responding with a welcoming cry. He explained that he would be playing both old and new stuff before introducing the next song ‘My Criminal Record’ and saying laughingly that he didn’t have one only because he didn’t get caught. He gushed how good it was to be back in this town, a town that had always been such great supporters of him and Chisel. One of my personal favourites was next ‘Lay Down Your Guns’ it brought back memories of dancing to it at Cambelltown Catholic Club’s disco back in the 90’s.
“I think we need some blues, I know how you like your blues down here” says Jimmy ” Danny is going to play you some blues” and wow did Danny play some bluesy guitar during ‘To Much Ain’t Enough Love’ He really is an incredible guitarist and I love the way Jimmy lets both Ben & Danny take centre stage during some songs while he waits in the darkness.
Jimmy tells the story of how his wife Jane said to him one day that she wanted to write a song for him and he said sure go for it. One day she was following him around with a clipboard and pen. When asked what the hell she was doing, Jane replied “writing a song.” I told her “that’s not how you fuckin’ write a song” and she said “Well that’s how I do” He said “this is the result of that collaboration and it became a big hit” before singing ‘Lover Lover’
Jimmy’s vocals are really in fine form and he is sounding better than ever. The delivery of his older songs are exceptional. He said recently that he was stripping back these songs and playing them the way they were originally written and this was evident in tonight’s performance. Jimmy also has a powerful connection with his audience and spends a lot of time at the front of the stage singing, making eye contact and pointing to them. The fans respond by singing along with him and back to him, even during the new songs. He must be happy with that! ‘Working Class hero’ is sung with such intensity and passion, Jimmy standing on stage bathed in light. He introduces his latest single ‘I Won’t Let You Down Again,’ that is getting national airplay at the moment and was penned by Living End’s Chris Cheney. Flame Trees is up next and I would say this iconic, anthemic Chisel song had one of the best responses of the night. Well it’s a real sing a long isn’t it?and we are in the Illawarra Flame Tree area after all. The phone torches were out and Jimmy was bathed in a yellow/orange light during this song. The light show really was spectacular tonight.
Jimmy said in a recent interview I had with him that he hoped everyone would be tapping their feet, yep they were certainly doing that plus dancing and the occasional head banging. He also said that introducing new material to the show makes him sing better. . . big, big tick there and makes the band edgier. . . the band were on bloody fire, an incredible bunch of musicians and most of them family. Son Jackie on Drums, daughters – Mahalia on vocals and tour manager too I believe, EJ and Elly May on backing vocals as well as his beautiful wife Jane and son in law Ben on guitar.
Shutting Down Our Town’ featured the addition of bagpipes and again had a great response. Jimmy must be happy with the news this week that this song went back to #1 on the contemporary rock airplay charts and is his biggest rock airplay track since ‘Lay Down Your Guns’ in 1990.
Working class man was the final song and was met with a rousing response from the crowd. Another legendary anthem and close to our hearts here in Wollongong as part of the music video was shot at the Port Kembla steelworks.
Well of course there was an encore and what a blistering one it was! Jimmy said when he came back on he was deciding whether it should be a combination of soft and fast. . .nah fuck it make it all fast.
Jimmy is quoted as saying his job is to turn every night of the week into Saturday night for people well as it was a Thursday night he definitely did his job well!
Goodbye (Astrid Goodbye) was a high energy ending to this most awesome night with Jimmy joining the duelling Doley brothers for a piano and organ frenzy, Ben joining the crowd with his guitar and the crowd enjoying every last moment of it.
Goodbye Jimmy Goodbye. We hope you will be coming back for long.
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Jimmy Barnes – ‘Shutting Down Your Town’ Tour
