Icehouse band Iva Davies coming to Mackay for Legends on the Lawn

Ahead of a mammoth gig in Queensland, legendary Icehouse frontman Iva Davies said the modern music industry was “almost unrecognisable” to when he came up in the 1980s.

Ahead of a mammoth gig in Queensland, legendary Aussie rocker Iva Davies said the modern music industry was “almost unrecognisable” to when he came up in the 1980s.

Things may have changed in the music business since the 1970s, but one of Australia’s rock legends is still excited about what comes next.

Icehouse mainstay Iva Davies is heading to Mackay for a massive concert at Harrup Park for Legends on the Lawn, alongside Jet, Pete Murray, Baby Animals and more.

“I’m really, really, really looking forward to especially Jet, Baby Animals are always brilliant and Pete Murray too,” he said.

“When my son was in his very early teens he had a little band that he played in and they played a Jet song.

Iva Davies' son Evan has a degree in sound engineering and is a guitarist playing in Sydney bands, occasionally joining his father onstage on tour dates.

“It always made me smile with 13 year olds playing Are You Gonna Be My Girl.”

Yet for young musicians like his son Evan, he said the path to success was very different to when Icehouse formed first as Flowers in 1977.

Davies said a conversation with Eleven Music’s John Watson, the “very experienced” manager of acts like Midnight Oil and Missy Higgins, made him realise the world he’d come up in was “almost unrecognisable”.

“It was, broadly speaking, trying to become a success in Australia and New Zealand and then go off and try and conquer the world,” he said.

Flowers / Icehouse L/R - John Lloyd, Iva Davies, Keith Welsh, Adam Hall.

“That model is completely different these days.

“In fact, (Watson) told me almost the reverse applies, that you actually have to start working on an international fan base and then somehow or other get back into Australia, which is bizarre in the extreme to me.”

Even with that change aside, Davies said a crucial issue for young musicians was just finding somewhere to perform live.

New bands “just busting to play” and finding it hard to get people interested in seeing live music was also bizarre to him, and said in his 20s people could go to a gig “seven nights a week if you want”.

Though facing a new generation of the music biz, Davies remains humble about the hundreds of fans expected to be singing along when he heads to Mackay in June.

Iva Davies, Icehouse. For Preview, the Mercury.

He called the continued popularity of iconic songs like Great Southern Land was “still a great mystery” to him four decades after he cut up the words and arranged the track on the floor in 1982.

“It’s incredibly rewarding to recognise the fact that they have not only achieved an audience of people who love them, but now we’re starting to see them travel down generations,” Davies said.

“Which is really the most extraordinary thing to see a 10 year old in the audience who can sing every word of the lyrics back at you.”

Davies said apart from rehearsals for the Mackay show, he was keen to renovate his home studio to “trick himself” into writing more music with an upgrade of modern instrumental and recording tech as well as the classic machines and gear that built Icehouse’s distinct sound.

“Who knows whether that’ll produce anything or not, but at least I’m giving myself, you know, every incentive to do so,” he said.

Legends on the Lawn will kick off on June 1 at Harrup Park’s Great Barrier Reef Arena.

Originally published as Icehouse band Iva Davies coming to Mackay for Legends on the Lawn