Between gigs, Dr Gordi rides the tides of live music and medicine
Most of Sophie Payten’s time of late has been spent in scrubs while helping with Victoria’s vaccine rollout, and she knows how much how boosting vaccination rates will help the music industry.
When Sophie Payten was getting calls from Victoria’s health department this time last year, asking if she was available to pick up some casual shifts, the qualified doctor had a unique reason to decline: she was preparing for her debut performance at the Sydney Opera House.
Restrictions on social gatherings meant her concert took place before an empty room, when the launch of her second album, Our Two Skins, was streamed online on July 25 last year.
After the show, Dr Payten – who records and performs as the indie folk/pop singer-songwriter Gordi – returned to Melbourne to begin working at various hospitals to fill in for other junior doctors who had been exposed to Covid-19 infections.
The notion of juggling two vastly different careers in arts and medicine is not new to her.
“I have a hard time with it, and I do worry from time to time that I’m not giving my full self to either, and maybe I’m doing a half-baked job at both,” she says. “But when I’m feeling more positive about it, I look at it as if medicine and music are almost like these two tides going in and out, and I just try and pick which way they’re moving and jump from one to the other.”
Next month, she will perform at the Sydney Opera House once again as part of Vivid Live on August 19 and 20. This time, though, there’ll be a live audience and therefore plenty of crowd applause between songs.
Most of her time of late has been spent in scrubs while helping with Victoria’s vaccine rollout, and Dr Payten knows exactly how much how boosting Australia’s vaccination rates will help her artistic colleagues get back to work without fear of lockdowns and border closures.
“There’s so much loss of confidence in the music industry at the moment, and in any planning of tours and festivals,” she says.
“The only way to not constantly lock down (cities) is to increase vaccination numbers, and the only way to do that is to get more vaccines.
“I think it has been seriously botched by the federal government in many ways. It’s costing the music industry money, and it’s going to start costing jobs and expertise, because people will start leaving the industry.”
This month and next, she will support Paul Kelly on a run of 16 dates through Queensland, NSW, Victoria and Tasmania alongside country singer-songwriter Fanny Lumsden.
“It’s great that Paul has taken on two young female artists to be his support acts,” she says. “I’ve listened to Paul Kelly my entire life, and it’s definitely the tour that I’ve done where the most family members and friends have hit me up for free tickets.”
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