INXS members are no doubt enjoying the status and record sales boost from the televised mini-movie, Never Tear Us Apart: The INXS Story, with the second and final half of the two-part series screening on Channel Seven last night.
But INXS guitarist Tim Farriss is using the current media spotlight to turn attention away from the glory days of the band’s past and instead shifting focus towards a topical contemporary issue, the decline of the live music scene in Sydney where INXS first rose to prominence.
The 56-year-old musician says that the decrease in live music and entertainment in Sydney venues is linked to an increase in alcohol-related violence, joining the chorus of detractors opposed to NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell’s tough measures on inner-city venues that will harm the ailing live music scene.
The new laws – including 1:30am lockouts, 3am last drinks, and statewide closure of bottle shops from 10pm – are set to come into effect on Monday 24th February, designed as a knee-jerk reaction to an issue that’s gripped the NSW Government’s attention since the death of teenager Daniel Christie on New Years from a fatal one-punch ‘coward’ assault in Kings Cross.
“There would be a lot less alcohol-fuelled violence if people were getting their rocks off watching bands live… But nowadays everybody just stands around in pubs and gets geed up for a fight,” says Farriss in an interview with News Ltd. “There would be a lot less alcohol-fuelled violence if people were getting their rocks off watching bands live…”
The guitarist essentially says that live music will soothe the savage beast, re-directing the pent-up energies of drinking punters looking for a brawl with entertainment – reducing the wave of ‘king hits’ and assaults while also nurturing the next generation of Sydney’s music-makers (echoing sentiments made by MusicNSW and The Preatures’ Izzy Manfredi in a recent community forum).
“People are going to drink but let ‘em drink in an environment where they’re spending a lot of time looking at some band, dancing, being entertained. They forget about the alcohol as their only focus, for a start,” explains Farriss.
“When we were growing up it was all about what band we were going to see. It really didn’t matter about drinking so much, it just happened to be in a pub. Then the slot machines and DJs started taking hold — nothing against DJs — but it’s all a bit mindless.”
The INXS member pointed towards larger scale public events as a model for entertainment curbing boredom-fuelled brawls. “No one fights after going to Tropfest. Even New Year’s Eve, it just goes to show if you entertain people and they’re not bored, they don’t turn mindlessly to violence,” he says.“People are going to drink but let ‘em drink in an environment where they’re spending a lot of time looking at some band, dancing, being entertained.”
“[Live entertainment] is all the kids have got. It’s like this cage-fighting, I don’t get it … but it’s because no one wants to be Cold Chisel, or Midnight Oil, or AC/DC or Mental as Anything or get their rocks off rocking out to The Radiators anymore, because it’s just not out there.”
It’s an issue that’s particularly close to Farris, who reveals to News Ltd that he and one of his sons had been victims of ‘king hit’ assaults near their own Sydney home, while last night’s finale of the INXS tele-movie depicted a little-known incident in which frontman Michael Hutchence (played by Luke Arnold) lost his sensory abilities after a similarly ‘one-hit coward’ assault.
The iconic INXS singer, who was holidaying with his then-supermodel girlfriend Helen Christensen (played by Mallory Jansen in Never Tear Us Apart), was robbed of his sense of taste and smell after a taxi driver randomly punched Huchence in the head. The tele-movie suggests that the loss of his senses led to the dark spiral that led to the tragic death of the INXS frontman.
“I remember him telling me that he couldn’t smell and taste anymore and he was crying, literally crying,” recalls Farris of the emotional event portrayed in the series finale. “What do you say? What can you do?”
