Written, directed and produced by Paul Clarke who IMDB suggests has form for vanilla valedictory hagiography. Warts-and-all this is not; I think many would have preferred to just see more of the concert footage excerpted here.
I had some awareness that they'd changed bassists over the years but not why; on this account they just wore out, a consumable component of a hard rocking outfit otherwise built to last (leaving aside the unmentioned Capricornia and other misdemeanours). I'd heard this was the reason for the radical simplification of their sound sometime in the early 1980s (compare Section 5 (Bus to Bondi), Back on the Bordlerine, Hercules, etc. to anything on Diesel and Dust) but it's suggested here that was due to a new, more commercial producer.
There is an excessive focus on Peter Garrett. His speaking voice seemed was initially unfamiliar, kicking into what I remember sometime after his run for the senate in 1985 on a platform of anti-nukism. How quaint now. The purported greatest hits of his time in the ALP is excruciating, amounting to some spoken-word contributions from Plibersek and Albo (those nights in Selina's!), footage of John Howard's finest moments and a frank assessment of Kevin Rudd 2.0. A merciful veil is drawn over the pink batts saga and also, more inexplicably, Garrett's signature gibberish/running at the mouth between songs which never left me in any doubt that the crowd was there for the tunes and the dancing. We're told he could get properly furious.
So I want to say that this great story of a self-made band is poorly told but the musical footage is impossible to wreck so you have to watch it anyway. I wanted to see them situated in the vibrant early-1980s scene against other activist musicians like Shane Howard and fellow sweaty pub rockers Cold Chisel. Chisel struck me as powerfully apolitical with lyrics at least as good; more working class for sure, perhaps more suburban and yet with a more authentic connection to the non-urban through Ian Moss and Don Walker. Nothing is said about Hunters and Collectors or their relation to other giants of the era like Michael Hutchence and Kylie Minogue. Did they drag anyone up after them? Were they just a bunch of clean-living surfers?
The ABC produced this biopic and has had a long entanglement with the Oils; they also released Oils on the Water on DVD during the 2003 to 2016 interregnum. I reckon there's every chance they'll be back.
Dan Condon: the latest in a lengthy series of biographies of the band.
