This sounds obvious, but when we get stuck in the daily grind it's easy to forget.
Go and see bands and solo artists performing live.
Over the past few months I've had some incredible live music experiences. Amusingly these have mostly been throwback tours, with artists playing albums from when I was in early adulthood. But other than potentially triggering a mid-life crisis the feels have been real!
Paul Kelly
Paul Kelly is one of our family's favorite artists. I've heard him described as the closest thing Australia has to a Poet Laureate. His lyrics, soaked in Australiana, perfectly capture the highs and lows of life and live.
My fast ordering skills paid off here, with seats in row 2. We sang every word of every song for two hours and had an absolutely wonderful time. At 70, PK is still running and jumping around the stage and his voice is still spot-on.
John Butler
Australian blues rocker John Butler was a huge part of my music listening early in my 20s. I somewhat moved on, but have always had a soft spot for Peaches and Cream - our wedding dance song - and many others from his back catalogue.
Whilst not strictly a retrospective tour, the majority of tunes John played with his "new" band were from his earlier days, plus a mix of tracks from his new album Prism. His guitar work remains second to none and the crowd at Melbourne's Northcote Theatre were having a great time with singing and dancing until curfew.
Butler's wife Danielle Caruana (who performs as Mama Kin) joined him on stage for a beautiful rendition of Losing You, a lovely surprise.
Ben Lee
My early-2000s music throwback continued, returning to Northcote Theatre again for Ben Lee touring his 20th anniversary play through of Awake is the New Sleep. Later called out on Instagram by Lee as one of his favorite gigs ever, the vibes in the theatre were incredible.
It's amazing that one album has so many catchy singalong songs that all 1500 of us remembered, word for word, two decades later. It really did show how much music of the era seeped into popular culture via television shows, TV ads, movies, etc.
After the incredible sax & guitar jam during Light by local artist "Ollie" (surname unknown, even to Lee it seems) one of the highlights of the night was his encore duet with Sally Seltmann, playing Feist's 1. 2. 3. 4., which was originally written by Seltmann. Closing the show with non-Awake #1 banger Cigarettes Will Kill You from '98 just made the night... perfect.
So that's my past few months of live music. I feel like I'm coming back out of a cave and loving being with other humans, singing and moving to music we all love made by artists who are just amazing.
In the next few months I'm lucky enough to have tickets to see The Living End as well as Josh Pyke playing through his 2006 album Feeding the Wolves (yep, another reminder I'm getting old). February will bring us to Ed Sheeran, for a dramatic change in gears.
But yeah... go and see more live music.