ENTERTAINMENT
MANDY NOLAN’S
SOAPBOX
TORA TAKE THE REST
W W W. E C H O. N E T. A U /S OA P - B OX
RUN GIRL RUN
Five years ago my husband and I built a six-bedroom house. After years of stacking kids two deep per room, we graduated from lower middle class to the ripening affluence of a family where everyone had their own bedrooms.
John and I finally had a room with a door, instead of the gypsy stylings of the red velvet curtain we used to partition the lounge room where we tried to make ‘adult space’. Many the failed attempt at a sneaky root was launched there, only to be aborted on the appearance of the silhouette of a child demanding toast or water or money. We finally had our family home, but alas, a little too late. We really only had three years of all five of them in there at once. Delicious years ruined by adolescence and their yearning to get the fuck away from us. Over the next few years John and I ferreted away enough money to put in the pool the kids have wanted for 20 years, the punchline to that oftrepeated refrain ‘Can we get a pool, can we get a pool, can we get a pool?’. Well we get a pool and they all fuck off. The family of seven is down to four. In one month’s time, three of the rooms will sit empty when the girls all make their way overseas on individually planned sixmonth trips. One tells me she’s planning on moving to London permanently. Two of them have been coming and going for some time, but until last week it still kind of felt like they lived with us. Zoe left for London on Monday and I still haven’t been able to go into her room. I texted her that I couldn’t go in, told her that every time I look in there I start crying, to which I received the reply, ‘I’m not dead, Mum’. True. I’m being a bit over-dramatic. I was lying face down on the carpet holding her childhood snuggly toy weeping. I know I’m lucky, my kids are still very much alive, but something has shifted in my family, something has changed. They’ve grown up. And that part of my life, of our shared lives, is gone. It’s a memory now. It lives in photos, or stories, or Facebook feeds. It lives in boxes of birthday cards and broken toys shoved under beds or in the back of wardrobes. I mean, when do you paint over the ‘tall wall’? The thought of the book closing on their childhood flooded me with regret. There was a whole lot of
shit I didn’t do. Like canteen. And guided reading. I was going to teach them to sew and cook. Instead I showed them how to online shop, drink wine and talk shit. The girls don’t really need me any more. I know that’s good. That you want them to find themselves and make plans and follow through and make their own life. It’s just a bit weird and scary. You are supposed to want your kids to leave. Like it’s some sort of relief. Like you’ve been waiting for them to fuck off so you can get on with your own life, but having people need me is my thing. I keep them helpless on purpose. I do their washing. I make their beds. I take their plates to the dishwasher. Because I’m a martyr? Well, partly yes, but also because while I bitch and complain and tantrum about how much I do, how I do so much more than anyone else, and of course, how much better I am than them for doing more than anyone else, the truth is it makes me feel like what I do for them still matters. It makes me feel like there are still invisible strings of interdependance that bind us. I never taught them to be completely independent because I feared that would make me redundant. Nothing prepares you for the aching of their absence and the strange painful joy of seeing them walk into the world as their own women. It’s a curious mix of grief and pride. I didn’t know this until about 12.30am on Tuesday when Zoe walked through the departure gates and I lost it. I am not talking a lone tear rolling down my cheek. I’m talking doubling over, gasping, crying. Shuddering. Sobbing. It was quite a show. She turns back and says, ‘Mum, I can’t leave you like this.’ But I push her away and say, ‘Go, Go’. Then I sob some more as she steps away, worried about me. About how I’ll cope. Which is ironic because initially I was crying about how she would cope and then I realised I was actually crying about myself. Perhaps I am the one vulnerable to the world, not her. She’s a young woman now but I can still see the echo of the face she had as a baby, the face that looked to me for love and assurance that looks to me now for love and assurance once again. And I’ve got snot out my nose, my face is red and I look batshit crazy. Run, Girl! Run! And then she’s gone, my baby girl now a blip on my Facebook messenger. One down. Two to go.
32 June 28, 2017 The Byron Shire Echo
TWO-COURSE ELTON This Saturday immerse yourself in the Elton John Experience. The show takes you on a musical journey of more than 40 years of one of the world’s greatest songwriting partnerships of all time, between Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Covering iconic hits from the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album, and all major hits from the 70s, 80s, 90s and through to today. With a full band and excellent production, this show covers the iconic hits with a few less mainstream ‘cult’ favourites mixed in. Dinner show. Saturday at Ballina RSL. $54.90. Doors 6.30pm. Dinner 7.30pm and show at 8pm. Tix at the club.
BART & LULO In early 2016, European gypsy guitar great Lulo Reinhardt and emerging Australian world jazz fusion guitarist Bart Stenhouse decided to join forces to tour Australia together in 2017. In their joint Australian performances they will be drawing from Lulo’s vast back catalogue (exploring both his Latin swing and manouche material)
and Bart’s past three original world jazz albums (which combine heavy influences from Spanish flamenco, North Indian classical and modern jazz traditions) – performing in solo and duo formations as well as together with the shared bassist and drummer/percussionist. A mutual friend put the two in contact and the idea grew quickly from there. Lulo Reinhardt and Bart Stenhouse are at the A&I Hall Bangalow on Thursday 6 July in partnership with the Bangalow Theatre Company. Tickets are $35 and are available from https://bookings. bangalowtheatre.com.au. Lulo is also running a special oneoff masterclass on Friday 7 July at 11am–1pm, also at the A&I Hall, to share his vast knowledge and experience with participants! Tickets are $30 (+ online booking fee) and are available at www.bartstenhouse. com/events.
THE RAVEN’S SHOW Doni Raven & The Collective Insanity present a unique live show that brings visual and performing artists together to create a live painting and projection by abstract artist Hamish Gordon. Modern contemporary art will be created before your eyes while the band plays the raw energetic compositions of Doni Raven. Each unique piece of art will be created and auctioned on the night, capturing the intensity and emotion of the music. With special guests Walrus & The Carpenter. Friday at the Brunswick Picture House. Tickets available online at brunswickpicturehouse.com Tickets are $30/25.
The
‘A lot of the album was produced and recorded up at a house in Main Arm,’ says Tora guitarist Jai Piccone. ‘We had this massive garden and we would go out in and record organic garden sounds, flies and insects and birds and cactus.’ If you are wondering, cactus makes a noise when you flick the prongs. ‘We got a bit crazy after a while,’ laughs Jai of the intense Main Arm lockdown. ‘We were in the place for two months and we didn’t really go into town that much. We were with nature; it was weird creative energy!’ With the relentless touring schedule seeing Toby Tunis stepping out of the band to reduce numbers from five to four, band members are working overtime picking up Tunis’s impressive synth. ‘We had a lot of the foundation for the album before we got to the studio,’ says Piccone. ‘We had our base ideas and we came to finish it in the studio. It’s pretty eclectic. There is a lot going on – we recorded 15 tracks and tried to tie them together with a common feeling. With an organic percussive production and synth that we used throughout from track to track.’ So what should Tora fans expect for their only regional gig on the national tour before they head over to Europe where many of their shows have already sold out? ‘It will be a bit of a mix,’ says Jai. ‘It will be halfhalf – a lot of the old stuff and a fair bit of the new album. We have a special lighting crew onboard and so the sound is tied in. We have worked hard on the live show – and anyone who comes will be really surprised at how much our live show has moved along!’
Byron Bay
Street Food Party at theBrewery Sat 8th July
With more than 30 million streams to their credit and having played the likes of Glastonbury and Splendour in the Grass, a national support slot with RUFUS, and a run of their own sold-shows, the band that grew out of Mullumbimby’s Shearwater School, Tora, came back to home ground to make their debut album Take A Rest. And after a couple of years touring, the two months or so recording in Main Arm were something of a rest – a rest at least from the relentless travel and gigging that has seen the boys build an impressive European and UK following.
Tora play the Hotel Great Northern on Saturday.
4pm-9pm
Byron Music Society presents
Andrey Gugnin JULY 7, 2017 6:30 pm
Byron Theatre,
69 Jonson Street, Byron Bay
$35 |
1 Skinners Shoot Rd,
Members & Seniors $30
Tickets www.byroncentre.com.au
Andrey Gugnin Winner of the International Piano Competition Sydney, 2016
Byron Bay
Byron Shire Echo archives: www.echo.net.au/byron-echo