The phrase “all killer, no filler” might be a tad overused, but it’s entirely accurate when you’re talking about the Don Walker songbook. That musical treasure trove was dug up during a glimmering Sydney Festival line-up at Barangaroo Headland on Friday night. Australian music icon Katie Noonan moved heaven and earth to bring together four notable Australian women to tackle the Cold Chisel mainstay’s legendary work under the banner Songs of Don. She was joined on stage by Christine Anu as well as super-late additions Isabella Manfredi and Emma Donovan. The latter two subbed in for the originally announced Suze Demarchi and Emily Wurramara, who were prevented from travelling to Sydney by border closures.
The late line-up change necessitated a lot of flipping through actual physical songbooks during the gig (Manfredi observed that she’d had 48 hours to learn her parts), which in no way detracted from a stellar evening. The audience were left in no doubt that not only is Walker one of our national treasures, but also that Noonan’s quartet and drumskin-tight backing band were the perfect vehicle for his musical musings.
After an intro by Yumi Stynes, Noonan kicked things off with classic track ‘Saturday Night’, while Manfredi took on ‘Standing on the Outside’. Anu did her duty on ‘Breakfast at Sweethearts’, then it was left to Donovan to wrap up the first salvo with lesser-known track ‘Boundary Street’.
What was immediately striking is how well Walker’s lyrics and melodies work with the singer's voices, which seems surprising when you consider that his work’s most associated with Jimmy Barnes’ guttural growl of a delivery. Yet Walker’s everyday romanticism, his gift for detail and the poetry of the prosaic, transcends the hypermasculine Chisel aesthetic. And in the hands of these powerful singers his words become even more universal and accessible than even their wildly popular original incarnations. Noonan’s solo rendition of ‘Choir Girl’ was a showstopper, while Manfredi’s turn on the towering ‘Flame Trees’ was beautiful. It was down to Donovan to take on the iconic ‘Khe Sanh’, then all four came together for the lowlife paean that is ‘Cheap Wine’. Lesser-known gem ‘The Healing Power of Helpless Laughter’ took us home.
All up, it was one of those shows that defies criticism. When you’ve got four of Australia’s best singers performing the work of one of our finest songwriters, and in a jaw-dropping setting like the Headland, only the hardest of hearts are going to walk away unimpressed. Even Mother Nature held off the storm that threatened to bin the whole event, and if she’s fan of Chisel, who are we to argue? Let’s hope these elemental forces align once more to do it all again soon.
