A Night At The Opera (House)

There are gigs, and then there are gigs. For me, this was a big one. Seeing my friend and musical collaborator Kutcha Edwards up on stage in the Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, performing songs we’d recorded together was a surreal experience. It was also a scene I’d pictured occurring in my head years earlier… but on this night the dream was real.

Emotions were running high on a Tuesday night in Sydney recently when I found myself at the Sydney Opera House (which resides on a patch of ground called Tubowgule) witnessing my good mate Uncle Kutcha Edwards perform songs from his Circling Time album with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. (I’m actually writing this article on Tubowgule right now, looking straight at the House as tourists wander past me – I thought it might be fitting to pen this story at the source.)

I produced Kutcha’s Circling Time album a few years ago now, down at my Mill Studio, arranging the songs and playing several of the instruments on the record. So needless to say, I knew the material pretty well, although I’d never heard it played quite like this before!  

On the night of the concert (despite my best efforts to avoid it) I found it incredibly difficult to stop those parts of my brain I usually rely on to make albums from analysing the orchestra’s performance, picking up on arrangement cues, and reflecting on my many experiences with Kutcha during our time working and playing together. It’s the downside of producing music; you never really get to experience live performances of works you’ve created in the same way as do those around you, which awkwardly separates you from the collective experience. There’s too much going on in your own head; too many memories of the creative process that brought the music to bear. It’s a strange mixture of nostalgia, curiosity and reflection upon a process that in some ways never truly ends, but rather simply becomes more publicly known – some albums more so than others.

After what was (for me at least) a surreal entry to the main Concert Hall – a place I’ve found discombobulating at least once before when attending Bruce Jackson’s memorial back in 2011 – we took our seats in the stalls right in front of the string section, and braced ourselves for the rollercoaster ride.

It all began with Uncle Michael West from the Metro Local Aboriginal Land Council giving the best, most fascinating Welcome to Country I’ve ever witnessed. It was long and detailed, educational and funny, and it set the scene for what was to follow: a monumental night of musical rearrangements exquisitely performed by a magnificent orchestra – along with Kutcha and special guests, of course – a scene that weirdly I’d pictured occurring in my mind years earlier.

Two dancers, Brent Watkins and Phil Egan, both nephews of Uncle Kutcha, came out Stage Right to perform a traditional dance, welcoming the conductor Benjamin Northey onto the stage, followed by guest singers, one at a time, the dancers performing for each of them individually.

First up was Shellie Morris, who stood respectfully still while the dancers performed directly in front of her, followed by Emily Wurramara who did likewise. Then came Ray Dixon, who was a little more ‘interactive’ with the dancers, shall we say, passing by them with a wry, familiar grin on his face.

Finally, Kankawa Nagarra entered the hall, (a woman who Kutcha, later in the performance, described as ‘the legend’). She too stood motionless and relaxed as the dancers welcomed her onto the stage.

Then came Kutcha himself, resplendent in his fancy suit. He engaged his nephews in dance, looking at each of them intently, then skyward, and finally as the dance resolved, they let him pass. I must admit, as a white fella myself, it crossed my mind that they’d better get onto letting him pass pretty soon; Kutcha is 6 foot 4, and a considerable human being… I was worried he might push them aside and into my lap in the audience! Which, I hasten to add, was never going to happen, of course.

When the orchestra was conducted into life, they began as Circling Time itself begins, with a song called ‘Singing Up Country’. To the wider audience around me this musical entrance probably seemed like a gentle, almost innocuous pathway into the evening’s performance, but for me the experience was a whole different kettle of fish. I was immediately thrown back to the night when I recorded an Omnichord on the opening track of the album, which had originally been worked on at The Mill by a collection of musicians (Dean Roberts on keys and guitar, Marcus Satchell on bass, Colin Matthews on lead guitar and myself on drums) and in those early rehearsals there had always been something lacking about the arrangement, in my opinion – it had been distinctly predictable rock that I wasn’t fond of.

Then, one morning, while Kutcha and I were sitting in my house down at The Mill enjoying a coffee before the start of our day’s recording session, we talked about how ‘straight’ I thought ‘Singing Up Country’ was sounding. I’d had the idea of starting the song differently – without a rhythm section, time signature, or even a band, just Kutcha performing solo with his Omnichord (yes, he too plays an Omni).

I imagined a dreamy, ambient landscape of sound, with Kutcha’s powerful voice floating above it. So while the coffee brewed, Kutcha got out his Omnichord and sang the song just like that. It was a revelation – so much more compelling that the cacophonous rock rendition from rehearsals.

So we got straight to it. Kutcha recorded his vocal and Omnichord in the studio simultaneously as a ‘live take,’ and later that night I went to work adding more Omnichord OM84 to the new arrangement. I recorded my takes on my own late at night through a delay pedal to make the sound shimmer, and on the final mix there are actually three Omnis in total; Kutcha’s in the middle, and two performances of mine panned left and right.

This is why when the full Sydney Symphony started performing their own rendition of this same introduction, I was immediately overcome with emotion. I simply couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. My strong memories of that song had been of me sitting alone in the dark, messing with the delay times and feedback settings on my old Boss DD2 pedal, indulging in the trippy interaction between the different Omnichord performances. Now I was surrounded by thousands of people and a full orchestra in the Sydney Opera House! It was truly bonkers – one of those remarkably implausible moments where you really question whether you’re dreaming or hallucinating.

It was a surreal start to an extraordinary night of music, tumultuous emotions and meaningful reconnections.

The orchestra performed some fantastic versions of songs from Circling Time that night, my favourite among them being ‘I Know Where I’m Going’ – another song of which I had strong recollections given that it had originally been recorded in the studio as a single live performance. There were also some beautiful performances of songs off previous albums in Kutcha’s catalogue, along with other songs (some of them traditional) performed by Shellie Morris, Emily Wurramara, Ray Dixon, and Kankawa Nagarra.

It was a remarkable night for all of us, not least of all for Kutcha, who later told me how overwhelming and breathtaking the whole process had been, “It was unbelievable, Mr.!” (he always calls me Mister). He was emotional (as always), proud, happy, and confronted all at once by the journey he had found himself on (and continues to walk).

For me personally, the day pushed well into the wee small hours, by which time I found myself alone at Circular Quay. I actually took a photo of the Opera House that night as the moon rose up majestically and silently in the East; a cosmological gift seemingly handed to me personally by forces beyond my comprehension, given that no-one else was still around. I had always heard about the design of the ‘sails’ of the Opera House having been inspired by boats on Sydney harbour, but seeing the moon floating above it this still night made me see the building altogether differently.

It was a night at the opera I’m not soon to forget.

—

Andy Stewart owns and operates The Mill on Victoria’s Bass Coast. He’s a highly credentialed producer/engineer who’s seen it all in studios for over four decades. He’s happy to respond to any pleas for recording or mixing help… contact him at: andy@themill.net.au