Rock For Recognition

Last Thursday The Corner Hotel was filled with Rock, for the Recognition of Indigenous Australians in the Australian Constitution. Because as it stands now, they are not. In fact, there are more references to lighthouses, beacons and buoys than to Australia's first people.

With a DJ spinning tunes between sets, and on whilst we arrived in the bandroom, the first act of the night was soon on stage. Leah Flanagan captivated the crowd with her mix of blues and soul, complete with a full band, including the double bass.  She was very impressive, and definitely someone to watch out for.

Then, after a quick DJ break, Dan Sultan was on stage. He started with a ukulele and just him on stage, and captured the full bandroom's attention instantly.  After his first song he said, as a way of an introduction "Did you recognise me? Because our Constitution doesn't."

He confessed that he doesn't know anything about Constitutional Law.  He wasn't going to preach about the topic - he just wanted to start the conversation by doing these shows, to raise some awareness.  And he hoped everyone in the room would discuss it with their friends and family, and hopefully this issue will start to matter to Australia, and be addressed.  As it should be.

Fear Of Flying was one of his early songs of the night, before playing quite a few new songs. One called (maybe)  Nobody Knows was a totally romantic song.....and at one point every girl responded to one of the lines...clearly the lad has some love in his life!  Cute!

Nyul Nyul Girl was magical again, with the mix of his Indigenous language as an important part of the story.  The encore gave us Old Fitzroy, which the crowd supported in voice.  This was one of the strongest gigs I have seen of Dan, and his new material and feeling of contentedness makes a new prospective album very exciting indeed.

Check out the Rock For Recognition site, and learn about the state of glaring gap in the Constitution, and sign the pledge.  Let's make a positive difference in our Indigenous brothers and sisters lives, at last.