The Plaza Theatre, Geelong. Mid-1970s

Three siblings. Alone. Dark. Outside a concert hall. The police pull up.

Nine years old, eleven, sixteen.

They had seen the first act, a singer-songwriter with a single about the meaning of names that was doing well in the charts.

It was too late for them to stay for the second act, a band that had had a hit, about being gone, a few years previously. 1971.

The police asked the children why they were standing on their own in the empty main street.

They explained that they had been to the first half of the concert. “Mum’s going to pick us up soon.”

The police looked up and down the street.  Maybe pondered giving the trio a lift home. “Okay, I hope your mum is not too long.” The police car drives away.

Soon afterwards the family’s Kingswood sedan pulls over to the kerb.

Within five years the nine-year-old was teaching himself to play guitar; the eleven-year-old was sneaking underage into pubs to see bands; the sixteen-year-old was writing gig reviews.

Within ten years the nine-year-old was playing and singing in bands; the eleven-year-old was going to as many gigs as she could; the sixteen-year-old was interviewing musicians for the rock press, including the singer-songwriter and the band from that seminal night.

Within 20 years, the youngest had realised, no doubt reluctantly, that trying to be a full-time musician was going to be too hard; the sister had travelled the world a few times, always making sure to see favourite bands; the sixteen-year-old had realised, also no doubt reluctantly, that trying to be a full-time writer had been too hard.

They each kept their passion alive, expressing it in different ways. Their three older siblings loved music too but age-gaps and stages of life meant they were unlikely, if ever, to see bands all together. (One of the sixteen-year-old’s first shows in the big smoke, the Palais in Melbourne, was when his older sister took him to see a gravel-voiced piano-playing singer/smoker/raconteur from the US.)

There are siblings all over the world sharing their love of music, paving the way for one another. Listening to each other’s albums. Going to shows together. Sharing roadtrip playlists. You don’t have to agree on everything, you don’t have to like the same bands, or like the same bands as much, but there is a bond, a thread.

There are children inside concert halls (or outside), at festivals, at school-fete gigs, at council-in-the-park gigs, at buskers’ corners seeing and hearing – maybe for the first time – a musician playing in public.

And their parents may keep their distance a little, but they inwardly smile, knowing the baton has been passed.

StereoStory #700


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Vin is founding editor of Stereo Stories and director/MC of Stereo Stories In Concert.