Cold Chisel brings 50 years of hits to a massive Melbourne crowd

Australian rock legends Cold Chisel have performed a stunning retrospective in the first of their six sold-out Victorian shows, wowing the audience with the absolute best of the best.

Cold Chisel performs in Melbourne. Picture: Instagram

Australian rock legends Cold Chisel cut a reflective path through a historic greatest hits show celebrating their 50th year.

The show, on Friday night, under a 10,000-capacity Big Top at Flemington, was a stunning retrospective, and jolting reminder, of Chisel’s power and potency.

It was also the first of six sold-out Victorian shows.

Jimmy Barnes and Cold Chisel perform at Flemington. Picture: Instagram

The show was a stunning retrospective. Picture: Instagram

“It seems like yesterday when we were doing three gigs a day in Melbourne, and finishing up at the Bombay Rock at three in the morning,” frontman Jimmy Barnes told the opening night crowd.

“I didn’t remember the first gig, I could hardly remember the third. But we’re lucky to be here, and really happy to be celebrating with you.”

The set packed wall-to-wall classics including Standing On The Outside, Choir Girl, My Baby, Forever Now, Cheap Wine, Flame Trees, Khe Sanh, You Got Nothing I Want, and When The War Is Over.

Chisel — Barnes, Ian Moss (guitar, vocals), Don Walker (keyboards), Phil Small (bass), Charley Drayton (drums) — was faultless, and switched effortlessly — masterfully — between rock, pop, blues, one-drop reggae and rockabilly styles.

Barnes, who has had an unfair share of health battles lately, was pitch-perfect vocally; fire, fury, and especially intense on One Long Day and the home stretch of Saturday Night.

Barnes says the band are ‘like brothers’. Picture: Instagram

Most songs, the soundtracks to so many lives, erupted into massive singalongs. Picture: Instagram

Most songs, the soundtracks to so many lives, erupted into massive singalongs and an echo chamber of joy under the Big Top.

Barnes also shared a misty-eye moment; details of a dream he had about the band’s late drummer, Steve Prestwich.

“It was so vivid, it was so true,” Barnes recalled.

After waking from the dream, Barnes made himself coffee and sat alone in the darkness.

“I wanted to keep the feeling of my pal Steve next to me, my brother, for as long as I could,”

He added: “We’ve been together for 50 years. We’re like brothers. sometimes we get in a room and it’s love, other times, we fight. You don’t know what you’re going to get.”

For Chisel’s 50 year victory lap, audiences are getting the absolute best of the best.