On the Outside Looking in - Cold Chisel
As legendary rock band Cold Chisel prepare for their 50th-anniversary tour, Australian Story looks back over the band's colourful history and examines why they have become such an essential part of our cultural history.
"The songs start as hits and then they become anthems," says journalist, writer and fan Trent Dalton. "And then, with time, they become sacred."
Music writer Mark Mordue – a Chisel fan since he was a teenager in Newcastle – says the songs are embedded into the national psyche. "Songs like Flames Trees and Khe Sanh, they're stone-cold classics and they're as much a part of who we are as Henry Lawson's story The Driver's Wife or Banjo Paterson's The Man from Snowy River."
In a special 45-minute episode, all four surviving members – Jimmy Barnes, Ian Moss, Don Walker and Phil Small – recount how the band rose from industry outsiders filling rough suburban pubs to arena-filling rock royalty.
An extraordinary live band, they were a combustible unit and broke up for the first of many times in 1983. "When we split up, I thought within two years it would be ‘Cold who?'," says guitarist Moss. "But it's the songs. It all comes down to the songs."
This episode looks beyond the band's history to explore the enduring impact and appeal of those songs.
"People come up to me in the street and say, I played your songs at my son's 21st. I danced my first dance with my wife to your songs. I buried my son or buried my father to your songs," Jimmy Barnes tells Australian Story.
Vietnam veteran Bob King describes Khe Sanh as the "unofficial national anthem" of Australia, since most people know the lyrics better than they do for the official anthem.
As the band prepare for the upcoming tour, songwriter and keyboard player Don Walker says he is looking forward to performing again.
"There's good mutual history, there's bad mutual history. The bad mutual history tends to fade and get lost in the sepia. Until next time we try and do something…"
Trailer
Recently Updated Shows
Wild Cards
Wild Cards follows the unlikely duo of a gruff, sardonic cop and a spirited, clever con woman. Ellis, a demoted detective, has unfortunately spent the last year on the maritime unit, while Max has been living a transient life elaborately scamming everyone she meets. But when Max gets arrested and ends up helping Ellis solve a local crime, the two are offered the opportunity to redeem themselves, with Ellis going back to detective and Max staying out of jail. The catch? They have to work together, with each using their unique skills to solve crimes. For Ellis, that means hard-boiled shoe leather police work; for Max, it means accents, schemes and generally befriending everyone in sight, while driving Ellis absolutely nuts. Against the backdrop of beautiful Vancouver — with all its unique, charming, and even contradictory neighbourhoods and subcultures — the two will have to learn what it means to trust another person and maybe actually become partners.
The Handmaid's Tale
The Handmaid's Tale is the story of life in the dystopia of Gilead, a totalitarian society in what was formerly the United States. Facing environmental disasters and a plunging birthrate, Gilead is ruled by a twisted fundamentalism in its militarized ‘return to traditional values'. As one of the few remaining fertile women, Offred is a Handmaid in the Commander's household, one of the caste of women forced into sexual servitude as a last desperate attempt to repopulate the world. In this terrifying society, Offred must navigate between Commanders, their cruel Wives, domestic Marthas, and her fellow Handmaids – where anyone could be a spy for Gilead – all with one goal: to survive and find the daughter that was taken from her.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
After surviving Godzilla's attack on San Francisco, Cate is shaken yet again by a shocking secret. Amid monstrous threats, she embarks on a globetrotting adventure to learn the truth about her family—and the mysterious organization known as Monarch.
Night Court
Night Court centers on the unapologetic optimist judge Abby Stone, daughter of the late Harry Stone, who follows in her father's footsteps as she presides over the night shift of a Manhattan arraignment court and tries to bring order to its crew of oddballs and cynics, most notably former night court prosecutor Dan Fielding.