Pittwater Life December 2023 Issue

LINK: Iva Davies performed at the Opera House a
few months before the building was opened; he’ll
now play a special 50th Anniversary concert there
with Icehouse in December.
50 YEARS AGO: The Opera House was wrapped
in red streamers for its opening ceremony in
November 1973.
EARLY DAYS: With first band Flowers in 1980.
That something was a cocreator
(with bassist Keith
Welsh) of an intriguing new
band that played what veteran
music writer Toby Creswell
called “an eclectic set of glamrock
cover versions and Sex
Pistols-style punk with rare
intensity”.
If you’ve ever heard Davies
being interviewed, you’ll know
he’s among the more articulate
and urbane rock stars ever
to plug into an amp. Which
prompts Pittwater Life to ask
whether Flowers/Icehouse were
ever a wild band. Davies responds
with a story from their
infancy about playing for a
pittance in a corner of the Time
and Tide Hotel in Dee Why.
As Davies tells it, they
played the Time and Tide
every Friday night for months
and had the place heaving,
but the miserly pub manager
never raised their pay or even
offered them free drinks, so
finally the band negotiated a
better deal at the Royal Antler
in Narrabeen. “In our last
show [at the Time and Tide],
it came time to finish, and we
just kept playing,” Davies says.
“The manager started freaking
out and pulling leads out of
the wall, and we kept putting
them back in. The crowd got
wind of what was happening
and there was a proper riot. It
was on for young and old. The
police turned up en masse and
we fled.”
Icehouse went on to sell
nearly 1.4 million albums in
Australia. By 1993, however,
their fortunes were waning,
while Davies had become a
father and was determined to
be a good one. The band took
a spell that lasted until March
2009, when it regrouped to
grace Sound Relief, the concerts
held simultaneously in
Sydney and Melbourne to aid
PHOTO: National Film & Sound Archive
victims of the Victorian bushfires
and Queensland floods.
Davies will never forget that
night: it was the first time his
children, Brynn and Evan –
young teens at the time – had
seen him perform. And they
were flabbergasted.
“Until then, neither of my
kids really had a clue about
what I did,” Davies says. “They
came along to Sound Relief
and there I was at the SCG
performing in front of 40,000
people, and the look on their
faces when they got backstage
was priceless. Utter shock.”
Reinvigorated, Icehouse
have been performing ever
since. Last year, they toured
Queensland and NSW to
celebrate 40 years of ‘Great
Southern Land’.
So, what can fans expect
from the band at the upcoming
Opera House concert? To
be thrilled? Inspired? Stimulated?
Educated?
“All of the above,” says
Davies, who says he’s too
busy these days preparing for
shows to dwell on the past or
worry about getting older. He’s
happy, he says. Loves what
he does – and where he lives.
“I can literally sit where I am
right now, talking to you, and
watch whales,” he says. “Virtually
every room in the house
has a view of the ocean.”
A case of a giant of Australian
music admiring the giants
of the sea.
*Icehouse will perform in the
Opera House forecourt on 12
December. For ticket information,
visit livenation.com.au
News
The Local Voice Since 1991
DECEMBER 2023 21