Music stirs the beating heart of Crossley community
By MARIA WHITMORE Warrnambool Standard Apr. 9th, 2013-
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ON Friday evening I went to St Brigid’s Hall, Crossley, for 15 Minutes of Fame — or The Crossley Craic, as some like to call it.
As a former Warrnambool resident, I experienced the night from the perspective of someone without their own “tribe” close at hand anymore, but who now lives a more solitary existence alongside millions of other time-starved, traffic-overloaded Melburnians shuttling between freeways, arterial roads and side streets for way too many hours a day.
I arrived to a noisy, packed hall with perhaps 120 people seated around trestle tables that groaned under the weight of the food and wine they’d brought to share.
A small whiteboard at the side of the stage announced the names of the eight acts that would each perform for their 15 minutes — give or take a few.
On a night like this no one — performers nor audience — has any idea what they’re in for. The acts are, for the most part, an unknown quantity.
The idea behind nights like these, which organiser Carol MacDonald borrowed from an event in Stokers Siding near Byron Bay, is to throw open an invitation to perform to everyone — even those with just a skerrick of talent, so the marketing spiel goes.
And on nights like these you end up getting so much more than just a lucky dip of hopefuls. You get to experience the inside of the beating heart of a warm and welcoming community. It’s like one huge, all-enveloping hug.
Act one, The Sarah Drylie Band, was a first-time three-piece band. This was their first performance in front of an audience.
Sure, Sarah’s voice was rusty in parts, but there was no denying the purity that rang out like a bell once her nerves settled.
The audience whooped and hollered their appreciation; her mother, who had been nursing Sarah’s daughter on her lap during the performance, told us she hadn’t heard Sarah sing since the age of five.
The joy she felt about her daughter’s reconnection with singing was palpable, and last Friday at Crossley, we all shared in this mother’s pride.
The next act, Sheree Melva Duncan and Friends, was talked up enthusiastically by MC Russ Goodear, so I was a bit anxious for Sherree.
My anxiety dissipated as soon as she took the mic. What is that quality that demands you keep your attention transfixed?
As soon as she began to sing I knew she was the real deal. She killed me softly with her song about loss, she touched my soul with her laconic blues number and she seduced me gently with her irreverent take on everlasting love.
A star was in our midst.
Nigel Swifte brought us back to earth with his high-voltage rendition of AC/DC’s It’s a Long Way to the Top. There he stood, a blond, bordering-on-nerdy, 10-year-old kid with glasses and a fake tattoo, thrashing his over-sized guitar at lightning-fast speed.
Young Nigel was the personification of the reckless exuberance of youth.
And when I thought all my emotions had been spent, a tall, skinny, 60-something Roy Carson strolled on to the stage. I listened with scepticism as he introduced himself with a rich, mellow voice that had a distinct hint of Irish brogue.
What is it about the Irish that turns us into sentimental fools when they sing? Don’t they know that songs like Eric Bogle’s It’s as if he knows (about Diggers shooting their lighthorses before coming home) make us weep like babies?
We all fell a bit in love with Roy Carson at Crossley last Friday night.
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Had I had too much to drink? No.
Did they catch me at a particularly vulnerable time? Maybe.
All the door takings go straight into paying off St Brigid’s mortgage, so the feel-good factor to airy-fairy things like my emotions. It’s a bricks-and-mortar kinda’ feel-good too.
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