You know those historic events where people will say, 'I remember seeing such and such'? Cold Chisel's Blood Moon Tour coming to Tamworth with Paul Kelly, Kasey Chambers, Troy Cassar-Daley and Charlie Collins on the bill will go down in history as one such event.
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Chatting with Paul Kelly and Don Walker, you quickly pick up on the strong friendship and mutual respect they share as friends and artists. With such a long history, Paul fondly remembers the first time he opened for Cold Chisel, although the attitude of their fans has changed since.
"I remember very well sharing the stage with Cold Chisel in probably in the late 1970s or early 1980s and having a very tough time because their fans didn't like me at all," Paul said.
"We played places like Selina's in Sydney and, at that time, the hardest bands to open for were Midnight Oil and Cold Chisel because their fans just wanted them.
"I remember Cold Chisel fans... some tough looking dudes at the front of stage while we were trying to play our mostly downbeat ballads saying in a really quiet voice, 'F*** off, f*** off' the whole way through the set.
"We just got through our set, and probably did 25 minutes instead of 30 and got off the stage as quickly as we could and left it to the masters."
There have been many successful tours since then, although Don believes the situation was reversed when he opened for Paul in the late 1990s.
"Paul issued an invitation to me and my band at the time to go around supporting him on a big tour he was doing where the situation was pretty much mirror reversed," Don laughed. It wasn't music that first brought them together, though, with Paul and Don dating sisters, so their history is long.
"There are a lot of good friendships between the bands," Paul said.
"Don and I have had a long friendship and Jimmy and I have crossed paths over the years and is a great guy to be around and now that Jimmy has written his first books, there's just this other layer and depth for an audience approaching Cold Chisel and those songs and Jimmy's body of work outside of Chisel, so I'm really looking forward to it and all my friends are really looking forward to it. There's a real buzz around it."
As well as being personal friends, the two legendary Australian songwriters enjoy each other's creative works.
"I fell in love with Paul's writing at the time of Post," Don said.
"I love practically everything on Post. Then there are big hits that Paul had subsequent to that, that are timeless and quite exquisite works of craftsmanship. One of the big ones is Before Too Long and the way that it's put together where the first chord is the five chord and there's this wonderful melody and it comes from a different tradition.
"Our songwriting comes from a slightly different angle to each other, but across the divide I can particularly admire that song."
Paul said he wrote some of those songs at Don's house.
"Post came out in 1985 and some of those songs I wrote at Don's place on his beautiful grand piano," Paul said. "From Don Walker's solo songs, my favourites would be Get Along or Harry Was A Bad Bugger and with Cold Chisel, there are so many, but Four Walls would be my favourite."
They are both looking forward to seeing each other perform on this tour.
"I'm looking forward to seeing Paul's current band, most of whom I know, but the last time I saw Paul do a solo set was in 2013 and the band is now different," Don said.
Paul said he also looked forward to seeing Chisel perform.
"Last time I saw them was maybe five years ago, and what makes Cold Chisel great is the chemistry between the people on stage," he said.
"It's about all the different personalities with Jim and Don and the others around with Charley on drums and their great songbook."
Don Walker said his memories of Tamworth were that it was hot with no wind, but loved the musicians' late-night jams.
"I particularly enjoy that there are certain pubs in Tamworth where the musicians gather late at night and jam with each other and it's always great to be there," he said.
"There's Michel Rose and Andy Baylor and Stuie French, Michael Vidale and people like that."
Paul's strongest musical memory of Tamworth includes a special performance.
My favourite memory of Tamworth is playing at Slim Dusty's tribute concert not long after he died with Joy McKean, one of my favourite people in the world, and yodeling with her on Slim's song called Sunlander.
- Paul Kelly
"My favourite memory of Tamworth is playing at Slim Dusty's tribute concert not long after he died with Joy McKean, one of my favourite people in the world, and yodeling with her on Slim's song called Sunlander.
"I got to do a yodeling song with Joy McKean on stage in harmony. That's right up there with my top five memories of being in this line of work."
Paul said the festival, overall, was very important to Australia's cultural landscape.
"The beauty of that festival is that you have all levels of performers to play from the buskers to the pubs around the place to the entertainment centre and it's that great mix and the fact that people travel from all around the country to play there," he said.
"It's just direct, honest music."
The Blood Moon Tour comes to Tamworth on Sunday, January 19 at Wests (Scully Park).
