NAKED CITY: WAS THIS OUR SUMMER OF OUR DISCONTENT?
Almost everybody has been complaining about the wet and soggy Sydney summer. Whether you’ve been selling gelato at Bondi Beach or working on the outdoor set of the Great Gatsby, the onset of La Nina has cast a dampener over all outdoor activities.
The recent Sydney Festival was lucky to escape much of the lousy weather although Mike Patton’s Mode Cane in the Domain copped the full onslaught of a sudden downpour and other outdoor events proceeded with caution and a continual monitoring of the weather radar. All told, artistic planning aside, the event lacked that balmy, almost bacchanalian atmosphere that only a classic Sydney summer can provide. Just blame the weather!
And that’s something we might be doing for generations to come if climate change reaps the kind of wild vagaries to our weather that we’ve recently experienced. In the years ahead the Sydney Festival might well become an entirely indoor event as tycoon like storms rip across the Domain, uprooting even the massive Moreton Bay Figs and eventually driving the bats from the Botanic Gardens, for once and for all.
In those countries more accustomed to precipitation, like the UK for example the cultural landscape has learned to embrace the slush that the life giving rains deliver. Take the annual Glastonbury music festival which often transcends into a mud bath of epic proportions. Do the punters simply pack up their tents and sleeping bags and head for the nearest pub? Not on your nelly. They merely transform the “mosh” into a “mush” pit and wallow in a miasma of mud and mayhem.
It’s all very organic and rather than worry whether we are in for a soaking we should embrace the next Sydney summer with the philosophy of rain, hail or shine! We would love to see the Sydney Festival take the initiative and program a huge day of communal mud wrestling in the Domain – nothing too aggressive but the chance for families to get down In the mire and experience the primeval thrills that only warm, sloppy mud can convey.
Performers from all over the world could be invited to participate in especially choreographed celebrity mud wrestling, all in an alfresco setting and of course the wetter the better. Who wouldn’t queue for hours to witness a tag team contest featuring Lou Reed, Rolf Harris, Meryl Streep (as Margaret Thatcher) and Andre Rieu. Bring on the rain!
THE HIT LIST:
Texas soul and blues performer Eugene Hideaway Bridges sings the songs of Sam Cooke this Friday 17 at the Basement along with Jenny Marie Lang, Kara Grainger and the Soul Twist Horns. On Saturday 18 the Vanguard in Newtown hosts the unstoppable Sounds Of Seduction featuring Jay Katz and Miss Death and a platter party of sounds drawn from the archives of funk, 60s pop, bachelor pad lounge, Goth, Eurobeat, soundtracks and straight up rock’n’roll offset with groovy colour wheels and a montage of retro images.
