The Sum of Its Parts
I saw the great Australian rock band You Am I the other night. Not surprisingly, they were damn good, playing their acclaimed second and third albums in full plus a couple of other classics (yep, Berlin Chair was there, still as powerful and individual as its release thirty years ago). It was, it is safe to say, all killer no filler. Tim Rogers, lead singer, guitarist, songwriter and the last great Oz rock frontperson before Amy Taylor came along, was in fine form with stage patter and his rock god poses. The crowd of overwhelmingly blokes over the age of forty were suitably chuffed, swaying and pub dancing to the band that is to my mind, Australia’s last great rock band of the golden age.
A good time was had by all. So why am I, instead of being 100% happy with the nostalgic but highly entertaining performance, a little sad. Of course that is part of nostalgia, that wistful look back to the past where everything was still fresh and new, there was less grey hair, a smaller jean size and rock and roll, rightly or wrongly, was still all about blokes with guitars.
To me, part of the problem is, that these album tours, reunion tours and even farewell tours once started can often never end, and the band in question lapses into self-parody. Yes I am talking about you Rolling Stones and The Angels and to a lesser extent The Eagles and Springsteen. I understand you are musicians; this is what you do, this is your legacy to one of the most popular artforms ever invented but there just comes a time when it is better to let it go. As you might be able to tell, I’m not a big fan of these events.
Let’s face it, very few artists have the late, great Mr. Bowie’s ability to appropriate and reimagine, but for him to produce an album as good as any of his work that sounded fresh but still Bowie and then pass away two days later from cancer is unique in rock and roll. There is the target to aim for but there was only one Bowie.
Nevertheless, look at how Robert Plant has managed his legacy of being the frontman of Led Zeppelin. Still tours, still sings, does fuck all Led Zep. This is of course far easier to do when you are extremely comfortable financially but if the taxman is after you or god forbid, you have done the decades and still don’t own your own house, well of course the reunion/ greatest hits tour etc. is very compelling. Hell, you might just want a working holiday in the country that still loves and remembers you. I get it, but if there is one thing we all need to remember more often, it is that just because you can or just because there is a dollar in it, it doesn’t mean you should.
What does this have to do with You Am I, who with their equally worthy Oz rock colleagues The Church and The Hoodoo Gurus are at this end stage of their careers, or seeing it is in many ways a business, brand lifecycle?
Glad you asked. I have a theory about how to know when a band might be starting to tip into the “flogging a dead horse” phase. I’ve only just thought of it so I don’t have a catchy name for the theory yet so let’s go with – “I Can See the Sum of Your Parts.” Yep, that does need work.
By this I mean, that when you are watching the act do its thing, you suddenly realise that either consciously or unconsciously, the band’s influences and touch points are so on display, that they are now more obvious than what the said artists did with them to create themselves and their own artistic output. In other words, if something succeeds because it presents as more of the sum of its inputs then once the fire burns less brightly, once it becomes too familiar to all involved, the inputs start to stand out and distract. This might only happen with the old output or it could affect any new as well. And at this point it might be time to have a good, hard look in that famous mirror.
I thought of all this watching You Am I. For whatever reason Tim Rogers went out of the way to emphasise influences, singing snippets of Beatles, Teenage Fanclub, and Billy Bragg songs that shared the same opening chords to the You Am I song. Always torn between wanting to be the antipodean Ace Frehley from Kiss or Davie Jones from The Monkees, he also incorporated along with his well-known Pete Townshend guitar windmills more Mick Jagger dance moves. All good fun and entertaining and he has never shied away from his love for the aforementioned 60s and 70s bands but nevertheless for the first time it jarred and I have been trying to work out why. Not just why it jarred but why it mattered.
And I think it is because this was the first sign that maybe it is time for You Am I to look in that mirror and ask what’s next, more of the same or something new. A valuable legacy left in good shape or a continual drift to self-parody. It might be better to burn out than rust, but it is better again to let go and try something new.
