Missy Higgins, Joe Camilleri, Dami Im and Nic Cester on surviving 2021
Missy Higgins, Joe Camilleri, Dami Im and Nic Cester share how they survived another challenging, tumultuous year for performers.
With tours shut down and live performance curtailed, musicians endured another trying year. Here, four of Australia’s best tell Andrew McMillen how they coped, and what they have learned from it.
-
Missy Higgins
I remember the end of 2020. We said goodbye to that year like it was some thick horrible storm we’d all been stuck in and now it was finally drifting away. We watched the dark clouds float over the horizon, flipped up our middle fingers, turned our backs and picked up our cocktails to usher in a bright new year. God were we wrong.
I wrote a song at the beginning of the 2020 lockdowns called When the Machine Starts. It’s meant to be an uplifting piece about feeling grateful for the chance to finally stop and surrender to the moment. To be able to spend non-distracted time with my kids, to appreciate the little things like the way tiny little seed pods drift through the air and sparkle as the sunlight catches them. Or maybe finally having time to learn how to bake sourdough bread. What a gift!
Needless to say that song didn’t age well in 2021.
By the time the curve looked like it was finally starting to bend (yet again), lots of Melburnians felt like we’d been broken. Locked down longer than anyone else in the world our politics became a dumpster fire. People’s sanity has been stretched beyond its limits, businesses big and small have gone bankrupt, families are sick of each other, and no one’s Instagram-ing their sourdough anymore.
I’ve been relatively privileged. I don’t live from pay cheque to pay cheque, unlike lots of working musicians and the backstage people who do so much to help us.
Support Act, our industry’s main charity (that does an incredible job at raising money for musicians and music workers in crisis) had to expand 4000 per cent over the course of the pandemic to provide emergency help. Many people were better off in lockdown when JobKeeper helped them keep them afloat. Our industry has never been riskier and nobody can get insurance. That needs to change if live music is going to survive.
But that’s another story.
What really got me through 2021 was the small things. The knowing looks between the upper half of two stranger’s faces that said: “I know what you’re going through, I feel it too.” I can’t remember ever living through something that connected me to the entire globe yet also everyone in my neighbourhood on such a personal level, like we were all extras in the same dystopian sci-fi drama. The warm, crinkly-eyed smiles as you pass someone on your street, both out spending your rationed hour of exercise, but more importantly your one hour of being able to see other human’s faces and remind yourself that you’re not alone. This got me through.
Our street also started a Facebook page, which became an integral part of our mental survival, for me at least. Paintings were started on telephone poles and multiplied anonymously as the days ticked by. Spoonville villages were planted, teddy-bear spotting in everyone’s frontyards (my daughter’s favourite) and Where’s Wally hunts that went for weeks (I never did find Wag the dog). Facebook posts like “I’m off to IGA, anyone need some toilet paper or more sanitiser? Put in your orders and I can drop them off to you!” or “bunches of homegrown mint and a bucket of lemons outside ours today, help yourselves!” and even mental health check-ins like “How’s everyone doing? Crazy times huh? If anyone’s struggling, please reach out …”
I got to know my local community in a way that I absolutely know I wouldn’t have done if it wasn’t for the pandemic. As restrictions eased we minded each other’s kids when the other had to work or were mentally at full capacity. We pulled through together because we had to. And now I’ll love every single one of them forever.
Yes, this pandemic has brought out the worst in people. For example, I furiously told my son to shut up the other day when he was trying to tell me where to park – not a proud moment – and my husband and I are hearing only about 15 per cent of what the other is saying at this point. But it has also showed me how the vast percentage of humanity react when their neighbour really needs help. They show up, almost without fail, and with abundance.
So that’s what’s gotten me through – the little things. That, and the hope that now we’re finally opening up again, live local music will eventually revive itself and the gazillion shows I’ve got booked for next year really, actually, might happen this time.
My kids need a break from me to be honest. And God knows I’ll never make it as a sourdough baker.
Missy Higgins’s latest release is her single Edge of Something (from the ABC TV series Total Control). Her 2022 concert bookings include headlining two touring festivals: the beach concert series Summersalt (February-March) and new all-female event Wildflower (from March). For tickets, visit missyhiggins.com.
-
Joe Camilleri
Time, that most precious commodity. All of a sudden we had too much on our hands and ironically, it became a cause for concern.
My 2020 dance card was full of opportunities. No one on this side of the planet had any idea the full extent of the catastrophe that was to come. We lived in hope that it would be short-lived; after all, we’re clever little bastards, us humans. Yes, we took out bird flu, SARS, the mad cow disease. We found ourselves living in the southern hemisphere at the edge of the world, just waiting.
Early 2021, my guitarist Claude Carranza and I found ourselves bunkered down at Howard Springs resort NT. It had all the charm of a detention centre; the welcome pack a 14-day quarantine with food trays left outside the door. This was a cruel necessity to play a handful of shows we had in NSW. The one thing we could do was to walk up and down the promenade in the evenings.
Coming from Melbourne, we were seen as the great unwashed from the dirtiest town in Australia. It was Africa hot, and after the initial shock of it all Claude and I settled in. We decided to do some veranda concerts. Every night we appeared on the veranda to entertain. We called it the Shangri-La Club. The show kicked off at 5.55pm sharp till 6.20, there were no requests, until the jacks shut down the Shangri-La for the rest of our stay.
The uncertainty still existed, state by state, blow by blow, the numbers and encounters, killing my electronic Valium fix. I was one of the lucky ones living outside the ring of steel. I felt the stress of being idle. Feeling for my brothers and sisters, missing my little life. Now at 73, the source of my energy has shifted and I’m not in a hurry to “get there” any more. I have a bigger understanding of what I love doing.
So as I slide the needle on to the groove of a Miles Davis record I hear a beauty that catapults me in between space and time. This feeling of timelessness I also find in Debussy, Indigenous paintings and my favourite, Pharoah Sanders.
This unexpected gift of time gave me a new appreciation of all the things around me. Time to regroup … to reassess … re-evaluate. A sense of freedom I wish I had as a younger chap.
Many of us found ourselves working in our gardens, waiting for the inspiration of changing seasons. To see our first Beau rose, magnolia trees bloom as sunlight breaks through an endless bitter winter. Gratitude for the power of nature.
The world fought back. Those clever bastards gave us a vaccine in a blink of an eye. Freedom and a sense of normality felt within reach. Boy was I ready to get my passport stamped and dive head first into a new world order.
I was geared up ready to perform a string of live shows on the back of a successful album. That was short-lived. The fourth wave hit harder than a karate chop and cut deeper into our weary souls. The pandemic had now divided, fractured and confused a nation. There were hipsters and hustlers, fly-by-nighters, tin gods and their crackpot theories. In a weird way that’s what is fabulous here … it’s all in the mix, we have a voice and we’re still allowed to express it. That’s what I call freedom
I’m so happy and to be living in the land of Oz. Now it’s time to set sail again playing the old hits with sprinkles of new songs from the Saint Georges Road album. Life feels exciting again and full of promise; 2021 reluctantly fades into a memory and the thirst for the summer months is intoxicating. My 2022 dance card is full like many of my cohorts in this caper we call the business of show. Music is a healer and there’s a doctor in the house.
Joe Camilleri and the Black Sorrows’ latest release is Saint Georges Road, out via Ambition. The band’s 60-date national tour in 2022 includes Melbourne (March 27), Launceston (March 31) and Byron Bay Bluesfest (April 15-16). For tickets, visit theblacksorrows.com.au.
-
Dami Im
There’s definitely anger and resentment in me but I’m not sure who it’s aimed at. I feel disappointed about the year we’ve had. It was like being stuck in traffic for too long hoping we would get out of it soon. But hours later you’re still in a gridlock, feeling unsure how much longer this will go on for. As someone whose job used to involve travelling around to different places, spending most of this year being stuck at home with nowhere to go while around me in Queensland people seemed to live a relatively normal day-to-day was tough.
I remind myself of how lucky we are to have safety and an effective healthcare system, but this knowledge also made it hard to admit how emotionally difficult the year has been for me.
As I finally allow myself to reflect, I start to fill the whole page with unprocessed emotions and frustrations that I had bottled up inside. But now that I’ve had some time to process those raw feelings, I decide I don’t want to bombard this space with my complaints.
The truth is even in these unpleasant times there were some valuable things that I’ve learnt.
1. Happiness and suffering are a natural part of life.
We all naturally want to be happy and constantly be having the best time of our lives, but this year has taught us that it doesn’t go that way. Bad news hits harder if you believe that only good things are supposed to happen. Every season has its place, whether that be the sweet springs or the harsh winters, whether we like it or not, and accepting that truth makes misfortune a little more bearable.
2. Productivity might not be the answer.
Ever since I was a teenager I’ve always been burdened by a constant pressure and guilt to be productive with my time and energy. I was always sprinting towards my goals, to achieve as much in the shortest time frame as possible.
In October I released my 10-track album, My Reality. This was a welcome distraction and a solid goal that no outbreak could cancel. I felt productive again, at least while it lasted. But once that phase was over I felt the anxious voice creeping up again like a snake taunting me for not making the most of this precious time.
This year has led me to ask myself: what was the point of running so fast if I was to be forced to stop here and hover in this waiting room where it’s not possible to predict what’s going to happen next week, therefore plan anything at all? I’ve had to let go of my compulsion to work towards the next goal.
Maybe it’s not so sustainable for somebody to be running all the time.
3. Good days will come again (even if it’s not the same again).
I think a part of the resentment in me was the thought that things might never be quite the same. I reminisce about 2019, where I would travel to three cities in one weekend, performing at concerts and meeting new and exciting people.
A lot has changed since then. A couple of months ago I found out that I was pregnant with our first child, and even though this is good news, a part of me is grieving the life that I’ll never return to.
When things go back to “normal” it won’t be the same again. I can get really sad and depressed about this or I can accept that we grow older and seasons change. Yes, things just won’t be the same ever again. But that space will be filled with new adventures. As someone who is naturally prone to being paralysed by the fear of the unknown I must reframe my mind to believe the future is exciting, not because I have amazing plans but because it is precisely that: unknown.
Dami Im’s latest release is My Reality, out via ABC Music. Her 2022 concert bookings include Byron Bay Bluesfest (April 15). For tickets, visit damiim.com.
-
Nic Cester
I actually have a lot of very fond memories of the various lockdowns with my wife and daughter here in Milan. I hesitate to say it because I also know how devastating it was for so many. People lost loved ones, jobs, income, and were forced to deal with some deeply personal issues and demons.
For me, the main difference – particularly during the first lockdown in 2020 – was that all of a sudden there was nowhere to hide any more and I was forced to face myself.
The other big difference, though, was that there were no distractions and in that moment, my life actually started to really come into focus. It seemed to become clearer to me what really mattered; what I could do without.
Family, music, health … it actually seemed alarmingly simple.
My daughter was also now at an age where she was more aware of my presence and was becoming slightly less reliant on my wife for everything. What ensued became a very special moment for our relationship where we really started to connect and bond in a much deeper way. There were also no tours or long hours in studios and I was suddenly able to dedicate all my time to her and my wife, Pia, whom I had also been neglecting after months and months of intense work on an album that I was just finishing as the pandemic began.
Releasing this album now was obviously not going to happen and all plans were scrapped until further notice. The disappointment and frustration in that moment is really hard to express. All those long hours of painstaking work. The turmoil of wrestling with doubts and insecurities that, when overcome, lead to dizzying moments of pure elation. The maniacal rollercoaster of emotions that come with baring your soul, writing songs and making an album. An album that was finally done, then suddenly … nothing, over, stop.
So, what now, then? I had no idea, but the risk of falling into a catastrophic slump was high. I knew I had to keep going.
I decided to go back to an idea that I’d had for a very long time. I revisited some old songs that I thought maybe I could weave together somehow to tell a story – a story for my daughter, Matilda.
I ended up going one step further and wrote an entire children’s book to accompany this album. The whole project became something we were able to share together, and each night I’d tell it to her again and again, as it slowly took form. It was the story of the Skipping Girl, the famous neon sign in my hometown of Melbourne that now seemed even further away than ever.
Italy is often the butt of many jokes: la dolce vita, or the sweet life, at the expense of proper governance. The infamous bureaucracy and the frustrating lack of organisation is very real.
But that’s not the whole truth. We witnessed a remarkable level of organisation when it really mattered. People calmly queuing, respecting the rules, always wearing masks; leaving notes in common areas, offering assistance to the elderly or to those with special needs. The nightly applause for hospital and social workers, the sharing of music from balconies.
It wasn’t always perfect and of course mistakes were made, some of them big. However, watching how an entire city rose to support one another was very moving and impressive.
Even though Pia and I had been living in Milan for five years, and even though Matilda was born here, we’d always felt like foreigners living in a foreign city.
I can’t say that we feel that way any more. Now, it feels like home.
Nic Cester’s latest release is The Skipping Girl, out now. To order the limited edition children’s book and vinyl package, visit niccester.eu.
More Coverage
