TRAFFIC was bumper-to-bumper as thousands of rock and roll fans flocked to Werribee the last time Joe Camilleri was booked to play Legends on the Lawn.
“Cars just weren’t moving, we were stuck in gridlock for ages, and my front-of-house guy wanted to have a cigarette,” Camilleri laughs. “So he walked off and then all of a sudden we took off again and left him behind. He had to bum a ride there himself.”
The Melbourne music legend, 63, reckons this year’s gig at Werribee Park on March 18 will draw the same crowds.
“It’s the rock and roll. People love it, the music from this time.”
Camilleri has just got off the plane after a whirlwind week of playing to crowds of thousands across three Australian states.
He says his music has held onto the same energy from his days circling the pub scene in the late ’60s, fronting Jo Jo Zep and The Falcons and later The Black Sorrows.
“There’s great spirit in the music of yesterday. Now, it sometimes seems there are too many other things driving music.
“You used to do three hundred gigs and still be invisible, but there was something about playing in the pub scene, people discovering you.
“Shows of playing to just 10 people, then it grows, then the next week it might be 200. That’s what’s great about rock and roll.”
But even after almost 50 years of making music, Camilleri thinks he hasn’t got it quite right, still searching for the “right chord”.
“There’s always the missing chord. I still have a reasonable rock sensibility. I write cinematic lyrics, I hook people in, I appreciate that I’ve touched them over the last 45 years, but I still haven’t found the right chord.”
Camilleri will join other big names including James Reyne, Jon Stevens and Daryl Braithwaite at Legends on the Lawn.
He’s looking forward to introducing people to his new 24-track album, Crooked Little Thoughts, which has been three years in the making. It includes a book that matches each song to a piece of art and poetry, fusing music and art, Camilleri says.
After merging one of his biggest hits, Chained At The Wheel with the Rolling Stones’ Honky Tonk Women, sending a 2000-strong crowd ” bananas” at a Perth show last week, Camilleri promises to give crowds a good dose of what they came to hear.
Details: legendsonthelawn.com.au
