Kev Carmody's first performance in years shows the power of storytelling and togetherness
By Dan Condon
Sunday 17 April 2022 1:00pm
Kev Carmody at Bluesfest 2022
Article published on the ABC Double J website
A very rare performance from the legendary protest singer is packed with songs, stories and special guests
The best artists don’t always pull the biggest crowds.
The line-up for this weekend's Byron Bay Bluesfest is packed with household names. Some of the country's biggest stars – Midnight Oil, Missy Higgins, Paul Kelly and countless more – are in the Byron shire to play to tens of thousands of hungry music lovers.
Over in the smaller Delta tent on Saturday evening, a smaller and more subdued crowd gather to see Murri man Kev Carmody, a singer-songwriter who has inspired all of those aforementioned artists and countless others since releasing his ground-breaking debut album Pillars Of Society in 1988.
Much of the crowd might not know it, but his very appearance is an enormous coup for the festival and an immensely rare treat for those who see him.
This is Kev Carmody's first live show in many years, and there is no indication there'll be more forthcoming.
He hasn't formally retired from performing, but you wouldn't need many hands to count the number of shows he's played in the past decade.
"I don't know how Peter Noble, who runs this place, managed to get me back here," Carmody says at the beginning of his set.
"He waved the carrot. Then he started talking about the bloody big stick!"
Speaking with Double J's Zan Rowe last week, Carmody said there was one thing that got him across the line.
"I'm doing it to bring people together," he said.
He knows that his work still speaks to the current climate, though that isn't a particularly pleasant realisation.
"I was going through the list of what I was going to play, and I look back and some of the stuff that I wrote even 50 years ago, it's a bit disconcerting, because it's still relevant," he told Zan.
"I'll put a number of happy songs in the thing, but there's a few there that still flaming make sense. Like 'Thou Shalt Not Steal'."
Kev Carmody pointed out brutal hypocrisy in 'Thou Shalt Not Steal'
A powerful message on the 200th anniversary of the First Fleet
That's the song he starts with tonight, a powerful reflection on how he found certain Christian teachings hypocritical, given Australia's history with First Nations people.
He knows that, at Bluesfest, he's probably singing into something of an echo chamber.
"I don't need to convince you," he says when referencing constitutional recognition of First Nations people, acknowledging that it's those who wield power who can ultimately make change.
On songs like this and the epic 'Droving Women', Carmody bashes away at the guitar and delivers his straight to the point missives with a strength that belies his 76 years.
Songs like 'Moonstruck' remind us Carmody is one hell of a country singer. 'Cannot Buy My Soul' proves he's still a dextrous fingerpicker. Half of his songs are punctuated by Dylan-esque harmonica blasts that add an extra melodic and textural dimension.
Kev Carmody and John Butler at Bluesfest 2022
John Butler joins Carmody onstage for a chinwag and a version of 'I've Been Moved', his slide guitar making the song tug at our hearts that little bit stronger.
There's no pretence to the way he performs. It feels like we're all just sitting out on the veranda hearing stories and songs straight off the cuff.
He abandons one song partway through and shrugs it off without concern.
He plugs his albums by saying "the bloody capitalists out the back" instructed him to.
He calls out to his family members in the crowd by name.
It's bare bones. No bullshit. It's perfect.
Our finest storyteller
"A song doesn't make any sense if it doesn't have a story," Carmody says during his set.
He tells a lot of them.
Stories about travelling through Wallangarra with Sammy and Gordon Butcher of Warumpi Band. Stories about the strength of his mother, about his time working as a wool presser, about the poverty he witnessed on a trip to London.
His stories are speckled with small but meticulous details, just enough to make it feel like you’re in the room where it all goes down.
The back of the cereal packet on which he wrote 'I've Been Moved', the living room he was in when he first heard Archie Roach's 'Took The Children Away', the red marks scrawled over his assignments when he used oral history from Elders as academic sources while at university.
These stories are dappled with jokes, the kind that are objectively funny: harmless, and told with good spirit. A little levity that might seem at odds with his protest songs, but that further show Carmody's warmth.
Passing on stories is Carmody's ultimate goal, and he encourages everyone in the audience to do the same.
"I never went to school til I was 10 years old," he told Zan last week. "I was raised in the oral tradition where word images meant more because they stick in your head."
What he offers is as powerful and educational as any book. Nowhere is this more evident than on his best known song, 'From Little Things Big Things Grow'.
Carmody wrote it sitting around a campfire with Paul Kelly at Wivenhoe Dam in Southeast Queensland. It's now one of Australia's most treasured songs, its conquering power after such humble beginnings making its chorus feel like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"It's become the peoples' song, not just Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly, it's become everybody's song, which is great," Carmody told Zan last week.
Kev Carmody and Friends at Bluesfest 2022
He closes his set tonight with this anthem, joined by Butler, Mama Kin, Jess Hitchcock, and Keir Nuttal, and, most importantly, every single person in the tent, who know every word to its iconic chorus.
"I really still enjoy flamin' singing it," Carmody told Zan of the song.
"And the best part of it is that you could ask the audience, 'Would you mind helping me out on it? Because I'm a pensioner. I'm a geriatric. Just give it a go' And they'll blast!
"It's just amazing how it brings people together from all persuasions."
A shining star
The end of Carmody's loose and heart-filling set is as surprising and unorthodox as the rest of the show.
Firstly, he goes over time by ten minutes, a cardinal sin for any festival act. No one else would have gotten away with it.
Then, festival director Peter Noble makes a rare appearance onstage, clutching a star-shaped trophy.
"We want to give this to you as an award to say thank you for all you've given," Noble says, presenting the trophy to Carmody.
"This man has been, and is still, one of the great voices for Indigenous Australia. One of the great voices for Australia."
Kev Carmody accepts a Bluesfest Shining Star award from festival director Peter Noble
Carmody, clearly taken aback and humbled by this surprise turn of events, is as quick with a quip as ever.
"I'm a star now!" he beams, before turning to Noble. "I'm gonna charge you more next time!"
If Kev Carmody does make it back to a stage – at Bluesfest or elsewhere – he'll be worth every cent.
To see him play anywhere is a rare treat that should not be taken for granted. To see him on Bundjalung country, his grandmother's country, is extra special.
To see him with a crowd that might be smaller than those of his peers that idolise him, but that remains dead silent as they hang on his every song and story, proves Carmody has been successful in what he wanted to do.
He shared his stories, and he brought us together. We reckon Kev Carmody would consider that a good day's work.
“The revamped Cannot Buy My Soul contains some true delights, such as Mo’Ju, Birdz and Trials’ overhaul of Bloodlines’ ‘Rider in the Rain’. Mo’Ju adapts Carmody’s first verse into a rousing chorus built around the line: “This road’s called ‘progress,’ it runs from oblivion to nowhere,” while Birdz uses the original lyrics as a springboard for his own reflections on the lies and hypocrisies of white Australia. Trials’ production deviates from the disturbed pace of the original to create an uplifting hip hop and soul number.”
“Kev Carmody is the real deal. He has been an inspiration to a couple of generations of songwriters for being a truth teller, and an indefatigable fighter for the rights of Aboriginal people in this country. His songs have always had a profound effect on me, brimming with quiet wisdom and poetic beauty. I was honoured to be asked to contribute to the original Cannot Buy My Soul project in 2007 and encourage you to get your hands on the updated 2020 version that features Courtney Barnett and Kasey Chambers amongst others. It’s out August 21 so head on over to Cannot Buy My Soul for more info. Love, BF”
“Dear Kev,
Forgive my intrusion. I wrote a short note to you 13 years ago – hope you still have the same email address!
I would just like to nominate Kev Carmody as Australia’s greatest ever poet. I don’t know of any other words that capture the essence of the Australian experience, as I understand it, depicting the land and its people in all its beauty and all its shame. I would also like to nominate ‘Cannot Buy My Soul’ as the greatest Australian music release of all time – with particular regard to the original releases. The tribute versions are fittingly heartfelt and wonderful but the originals are the essence for me. The haunting backing vocals of ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal,’ the portent of the violin playing on Droving Woman – the tears I have shed listening to that song! That is possibly the greatest, quintessential Australian song/poem of all time. Stupefied into an emotional breakdown every time! I would also like to nominate the core lyrics of Moonstruck for the new national anthem. By now I’m sure you are thinking I am completely crazy but……… for anybody who has any appreciation of this land we call home, and we all love the bush (apparently) who wouldn’t be proud busting out a chorus about western skies, the milky way and dingoes…..and walking to that morning moon set. (Picture attached is the last full moon – 6th June – setting west over the Camel Hills in the Gascoyne. Just got back last night from my slice of Australian heaven. Yamatji Country. Sooooo beautiful and no-one EVER visits!)
On a political note, I believe this country, Australia, has reached a tipping point. Such a long way to go and so much work to do but my instincts tell me that the culture and people of Australia’s first nations are on the way to being revered, loved and respected by the overwhelming majority. Aboriginal culture will be the primary underlying cultural definition of what Australia is and what it stands for. It has taken a long time (obviously) for white Australia to wake up but it seems that the trickle has started and momentum is finally shifting. 13 years ago my email was not quite so optimistic. I believe I will be alive to see a better place.
My apologies for ranting. My apologies for the ruinous occupation of Aboriginal lands.
Much peace and love.”
“Watching your stuff on NITV mate. You are opening my eyes further, thanks for giving me a deeper understanding, just letting you know I acknowledge your feelings of a past that has been hidden from view, and if everybody acknowledged that we would all get along just fine.
Love the do not steal song mate, ironic.
Cheers, stay safe. ”
“Seriously, this is album is some great piece of work. Kev Carmody came out of the box blazing. His debut Pillars of Society has it all. When I got the record I felt like the new Dylan had arrived. But Kev got fuck-all attention for it. My friend Rob Miller, who was doing publicity for Larrikin Records, put me on to it and put his heart into promoting it. It’s the only reason I know about the record. I met Kev then - and a few good times after. Much later he got all kinds of awards and deserved tributes, but listening back to this collection of folk rage is enough to bring some kinda mix of tears and joy and anger into your system. It wasn’t so much racism that stopped Kev, although that was there for sure in the system when this came out in 1988. It was ageism. Kev was maybe in his 30s then? Just guessing. He seemed to be a planet wiser, that was for sure, and if he’d produced this folk blues blister in his early 20s he would have been acclaimed as a god. But as a young man Kev was probably by a fire in far west Queensland, on the edge of a desert somewhere, listening to wise old men tune their radios to a broadcast of Under Milk Wood, taking in their guidance as it played to the stars. Kev can probably still recite you some Dylan Thomas, if you like, I am sure. I always remember him telling me the story, the transporting magic of it. Anyway, I interviewed him then, Pillars of Society time, loved the record and loved him. But I knew his chances had been slowed down unfairly and he was like bottle arriving on his own shore. A message in a bottle in 1988. Kev Carmody you are one of the true greats. Pillars of Society was and is a masterpiece. I’m so angry and happy I got to listen to it and talk with you then. You were always welcoming and warm, your music a storm and a fire. Pillars of Society will be around a hundred years from now, telling the truth …”
- Mark Mordue