Almost twenty years ago Jimmy Barnes sang a song about being a Wild Colonial
Boy and on 24th March 2001 he delivered exactly that; a powerhouse
performance of rock and soul at the Colonial Stadium. The last two decades
have been a long strange trip in which he has transformed himself into an
artist in full command of his talents. Where Jimmy’s powerful voice was once
like a force of nature; wild and spectacular, he now controls the raw power.
It was none other than Rod Stewart who, in the mid 70's took a teenage Jimmy aside and told him that he's picked up everything he needed from Paul Rodgers (Free) , Ian Gillan ( Deep Purple) and Robert Plant(Led Zeppelin) and it was time to go back and learn from the early masters; Otis Redding, Sam and Dave , and the legends of Stax Volt. It was a lesson that the young Glaswegian immigrant took to heart.
Over subsequent years t was a lesson he learned in his heart .At Colonial Stadium Jimmy Barnes rolled it all out; the hard rock, the soul,
the songs that have made him an Australian legend. His demons have been put
to rest and he has emerged as one of the great singers of all time.
‘Love and Hate’ appropriately opens the show and sets the tone. This title
track of Jimmy’s lastrock studio album was almost an exorcism, a recounting of where his life had come to in terms of the extremities to which he had pushed himself and the nourishment that he had taken from his family. It’s often been said that Jimmy was a man of extremes and in coming to know himself he embraced both those sides of his character.
And both were to be found on the following tracks whether it’s the voodoo
jungle of Screaming Jay Hawkins or the simple love songs such as ‘Seven
Days’. Bob Dylan's ‘Seven Days’ was written for Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood but Jimmy made it his own on his ‘Freight Train Heart’ album; a rollicking, tight rocker that has more dynamic range here than ever.
‘Land of 1000 Dances’ has long been a Southern Soul classic which amped up
the 35,000 strong crowd. Taken from Jimmy’s multi-platinum ‘Soul Deeper’
album, it allows him to exercise his soul chops and the range of his voice.
Also from the Soul Deeper album, although not technically a Southern song
comes ‘All the Young Dudes’. This is kind of a tribute to Jimmy’s youth
where the strutting glam of the early 70’s first attracted Jimmy to the life of a rocker.
‘Lay Down Your Guns’ is a Barnes original from his ‘Two Fires’ album and one
of his most popular singles. It shows Jimmy’s songwriting and arranging
talents as they were blossoming. It’s a song full of passion and
compassion.The Barnes legend began with Cold Chisel in the 70’s and grew
exponentially after the band dissolved and Jimmy became a star in his own
right. Of all the songs that Chisel made national anthems, the first single
‘Khe Sanh’ was the greatest. The story of a Vietnam vet who returns to an
Australia that offers him little to believe in and less to do struck a chord
in the national psyche and was regularly the most popular song in the
country throughout the 80’s and 90’s. This rougher version with Chisel
guitarist Ian Moss once again joining Jimmy, reflects the harder times of
the new century.
So too does ‘Cheap Wine’, another Chisel anthem to youth and spreading wild
oats.
From there Jimmy takes it back down south, accompanied by Moss’ bluesy
guitar for the blistering version of ‘I Put A Spell On You’. Where the
original was a haunting, at times almost a comic number, there’s no question
here what kind of a mojo, Jimmy is putting on this woman.
The spirit of Chisel returns with Ian Moss stepping up to the plate with his
song ‘Bow River’, set in the parched desert of the North. Barnes’ vocal
support adds a kind of urgency that goes with that desperate and desolate land.
Then finally there’s Jimmy’s anthem, ‘Working Class Man’. Although he may
not have penned the words, he has made this song his own; the story of an
honest and hard working guy who believes in God and Elvis, who takes one day at a time and who lives as fully as he possibly can. By the time Jimmy's working through the choruses of this track you can hear the entire stadium is eating out of the palm of his hand. They've been on a journey that covers fifty years of music and they've seen rock and roll pushed like a Holden ute hitting 150 on an unsealed road. And the only thought going through our minds as the guitar fades is ; let's do that again!
For any of the 35,000 fans who were at the show , "RAW" captures all of the elements that made the gig so memorable , without overdubbs and countless energy spent on post production. "RAW" was released following Jimmy and the band listening to the live tapes and basically being blown away by the precision and feel of the line-up as a whole.
As Jimmy was stated saying " This sounds fucking great- this sounds raw!" - with that an album, title and all , was born.
