27 Club
Regent Theatre
Saturday, March 21
Reviewed by Mariane Poole
Regent Theatre was packed for the rock commemoration of those musicians, Amy Winehouse, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Robert Johnson, and Jimi Hendrix who, having died at 27, let youth define the height of their careers.
‘‘Better, they say, to burn out early than fade away’’
was the mantra of the 1960s that 30 was the new old age. But as Amy Winehouse said, they were also incapable of not cheating themselves by continuing a tradition of the romantic hero.
Such geniuses also have in common the revolutionary hedonism, the hippy high hopes for humanity of the 1960s. Sadly, establishment money and power, life’s grumpy old white men, remain the enemy.
27 Club’s excellent lineup, Kevin Mitchell, Carla Lippis and Dusty Lee Stephensen and their backing band have individual pedigrees in Adelaide.
The rockumentary’s punchy success in Australia was replicated in Dunedin for an audience happy to sing along to Bobby McGee, the suddenly dated Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz, the fateful decision ‘‘Rehab, I say no, no, no’’, the acute observation People are strange, and Smell like Teen Spirit and Where did you sleep last night?.
The audience is told of the individual trials of the musicians: Hendrix’s legendary skills and Morrison’s musical knowledge and messianic locks.
The women are broken by faithless lovers; the males are lauded for their sexual exploits. Nothing changes.
A relative unknown is Robert Johnson (d1938) who, with no fixed address, used his evident charms to find a bed each night, only to be taken down by a jealous partner. He is also revered for creating the blues. Always at the Crossroad and down on his knees, finds its echo in Winehouse’s ‘‘every sad situation is a blues song waiting’’. The blues are perennial.
