Our musicians need a benefit concert to survive

Tina Arena performs at the Fire Fight Australia bushfire relief concert in Sydney in February. Picture: AAP

It now seems a lifetime ago but it was only in February that 70,000 people poured into Sydney’s Olympic Park stadium for the Fire Fight concert, headlined by some of Australia’s best and brightest music stars. These musicians and songwriters got together to raise $10m for bushfire-affected communities.

With social distancing regulations now in place, you’d expect these concerts to disappear. But Aussie and Kiwi musicians were out again in force on Anzac Day for the Music from the Home Front concert. The commercial broadcast attracted 1.2 million viewers from around the nation.

There’s a long history of the music industry standing up for the most vulnerable. Sound Relief at the MCG following the Black Saturday fires in 2009. Concert for Life in 1992 in Centennial Park. Live Aid in 1985. Hay Mate, which raises money for drought-affected communities, now happens every year. There have been numerous others.

Jenny Morris, APRA AMCOS chairwoman and rock star of the 1980s and 90s.

Artists and musicians are always the first to put their hands up to help when others are in need. When funds must be raised, especially on a large scale, they don’t hesitate.

Music is humanity’s pulse. It is often our connection to time and to place. As the great music teacher Richard Gill used to say, “Sound is the first sensation we experience as a baby in the womb.” The fact people’s lives can be embellished, changed, put into perspective and even saved by music speaks volumes about its value.

We are in week 10 of the lockdown. The music industry has months more of this to go. But with the shutdown, there’s also an enormous opportunity to reimagine the music industry and the regulatory and support framework it will need to really thrive.

How can we support more live music to help revitalise our towns and cities? What can we do to get more songwriting into our classrooms? And how can we truly celebrate our world-leading artists on our radio stations and streaming services? How can we better support the thousands of small businesses that make up the industry?

There are hundreds of thousands of people who work (and pay taxes) as musicians, songwriters, crews and managers, and those who work in venues and the entire infrastructure needed to publish, record and promote Australian music. This industry feeds whole communities and whole generations. But so many who work contract to contract, and businesses that operate seasonally, are falling through the cracks.

The very real risk is that these people will be out of work longer than any industry in the country. Even when restaurants, cafes, hotels, shops and airports start to gradually reopen, live events will be the very last cab off the rank.

Music is worth $15bn a year. Study after study shows the economic importance of music and live events to tourism, regional development, exports, night-time commerce and skills. Study after study shows the inextricable link between music and better learning outcomes and social cohesion.

Everyone will know this pandemic crisis is really over when we are all able to stand together at another concert, gig or event and it will be musicians leading the celebration.

But for the first time Australia’s musicians need their own benefit concert, perhaps led by Scott Morrison baring his tonsils and Josh Frydenberg on guitar. We need the Treasury rhythm section laying down a filthy groove and the Australian Taxation Office commissioners harmonising from the riser. Someone needs to start giving back to the industry that gives so much.

Jenny Morris is chairwoman of APRA AMCOS.