Big Red Bash 2024: Tina Arena joins roll-call of Australian musical greats
On Wednesday, Tina Arena took a moment to drink in the spectacular sight of a wide open blue sky meeting the rust-coloured sand that dominates the remote Big Red Bash festival.
Since humble beginnings in 2013, when John Williamson performed for about 500 people at the summit of a giant sand dune, the Big Red Bash festival team has been booking a steady stream of the nation’s defining musical acts.
After the True Blue songman came the likes of John Farnham, Jimmy Barnes, Paul Kelly and Midnight Oil. This year, organisers secured yet another iconic artist in Tina Arena, who gave a stirring headline performance on Wednesday, right on sunset.
After sound-checking with her band, Arena took a moment to drink in the sight of a wide open blue sky meeting the rust-coloured sand that dominates this remote environment.
“This is pretty wild,” Arena told The Australian as she paused on stage to admire the desert vista. “I’ve performed in some barren places, but I think this is the first red dust, real traditional Australian landscape [I’ve played in]. It’s spectacular.”
Situated in far western Queensland, 35km west of the tiny outback town of Birdsville, the Bash is far from the inner-city venues where Arena and her fellow musicians usually ply their trade.
Yet the novelty of a desert trip has proved a strong lure for many artists, who thrill to the notion of playing at “Bashville” – the nickname for a pop-up city of adventurous music fans, population 7500 – while backed by industry-best live production.
“It’s an incredibly respected festival, and some of the people who’ve come through here have said it’s a life-changing experience,” said Arena, 56.
“From a performer’s perspective, I can see how: being out in the open sky, with nothing between you, human energy and nature? Beautiful.”
In recent feature compiled by Review to coincide with this newspaper’s 60th anniversary, Arena’s 1994 hit Sorrento Moon (I Remember) was named as one of the best Australian songs of the past 60 years.
“A bittersweet sense of childhood nostalgia looms large throughout its five glorious minutes, where sublime melody reigns supreme,” we wrote of Sorrento Moon.
Its lyrics, co-written with Christopher Ward, were rooted in treasured, deeply felt memories of herself as a 15-year-old sitting on Sorrento’s back beach, watching closely as boys and girls courted one another.
Of its inclusion in the 60-song list, Arena said, with a laugh: “My first instinct is probably: ‘How did I end up there?’ I think the song deserves to be there, because I think there’s something really beautifully connecting about that one. That’s about as close to perfection as you can get, if perfection exists – which it doesn’t.”
As the sun dipped below the horizon on Wednesday and Arena’s band struck up the song’s distinctly Latin feel, it was a long way from the Victorian beach where its lyrics began – yet like many of the very best tracks, its genius lies in the songwriters’ ability to collapse time, space and memories into a few perfect minutes.
The Big Red Bash concludes on Thursday with performances from artists including Jon Stevens, Ian Moss and Chocolate Starfish.
The writer travelled to Birdsville as a guest of the Outback Music Festival Group
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