Goanna is hitting the road to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their acclaimed, multi-platinum debut album Spirit of Place – and iconic first single Solid Rock.
The band, who also enjoyed success with Razor’s Edge, Let The Franklin Flow, Cheatin’ Man and Stand Yr’ Ground, will take to the Civic Theatre stage in Newcastle on Saturday 17 September.
Shane Howard and the gang made the announcement following a triumphant performance at WOMADelaide as special guests of Midnight Oil at the weekend.
The national tour will kick off in June and go through to December, taking in all capital cities and major regions, from the Top End to Tassie.
In the early 80s, during Australian rock’s golden age, Goanna came out of Victoria’s surf coast and helped forge a new national identity.
Before Midnight Oil and Paul Kelly addressed similar issues, Solid Rock stoked a fire for indigenous rights that hasn’t gone out, while the latter anthem Let The Franklin Flow was a call to arms for the emerging environmental movement.
Soulful, lyrical, brimming with musicality and creative volatility, Goanna mixed classic folk song craft with spirited and rootsy rocking, helping to establish a musical thread that remains vital and ubiquitous in Australian music today.
In 2022, the core trio and ever-beating heart of the band – Howard, Rose Bygrave and Marcia Howard – together with Spirit of Place guitarist Graham Davidge and several special guests, embark on a new journey, paying homage to their classics.
Goanna’s place in Australian history extends well beyond that of a hugely popular rock group, although they were that, and they came to prominence during the golden age of Oz rock.
Solid Rock remains one of the most resonant songs in Australian music.
At the invitation of Master didjeridu/yidaki player, William Barton, Goanna singer/songwriter Howard opened ABC TV’s nationally broadcast 26 January Live concert this year, performing the track with Barton, Emma Donovan, the Kari Singers and Iwiri Choir, along with a traditional Ngintaka (Goanna) Inma (song and dance), led by Anangu cultural artists, Tapaya Edwards and Rene Kulitja.
The performance also featured a stunning digital animation recreation, by First Nations artist Brett Leavy, of “The white sails in the Sun” of the First Fleet arriving in Sydney Harbour, witnessed by Aboriginal people, “standing on the shore”.
The Goanna Band, as they were originally called, first appeared on Victoria’s surf coast in 1977.
Inspired musically by the lyrical singer-songwriter/folk-inspired style of rock emanating from California in the 70s and also favoured by Australian greats like Richard Clapton, Greg Quill’s Country Radio and The Dingoes – whose legendary front man Broderick Smith produced their independently released debut EP in 1979 – they had a commitment to the planet and its people and a passionate romanticism that perhaps rubbed against both the grog-sodden debauchery of beer barn rock and the cool cynicism of the burgeoning new wave.
Indeed, their global outlook reflected their roots in the alternative coastal surf community, while their political and social engagement seemed with more at home on university campuses.
As The Age’s Peter Weiniger described them at the time, “They are the Children of the Sun who came of age on 11 November, 1975, and their music carries a message for the ‘Space Invader’ generation….’
While Goanna never rode the coattails of fashion, their spirit and song-craft cut through and, after securing the support spot on a national tour by inspirational West Coast singer-songwriter James Taylor as an unsigned band – unheard of in those days – they signed to Warner Music in 1982.
The group remained uncompromising and, with the production assistance of Australian folkie Trevor Lucas – who left the Australian folk scene of the late 60s, joined iconic UK group Fairport Convention and married their renowned singer Sandy Denny – they recorded their classic debut album Spirit of Place.
Even then, Goanna had a notoriously unstable line-up.
For the album, they were Howard, his sister Marcia on backing vocals, Bygrave on keyboards, Peter Coughlan on bass guitar, Davidge and Warwick Harwood on guitars, Robbie Ross on drums and Mick “The Reverend” O’Connor (who passed away last month) on keyboards.
Released in September 1982, the arresting first single Solid Rock struck a chord immediately.
Its initial impact was most likely musical; its rattling drums, dynamic chording and anthemic chorus were irresistible, and its use of didjeridu – played by Billy Inda of indigenous rock-reggae outfit No Fixed Address, and Bobby Jabanungga – made it recognisably Australian.
But, its lyrical concerns would have the greatest lasting impact.
Indeed, the record company had been worried it was too confronting.
Howard had had a “spiritual awakening” which lit a “fire in (his) belly” about injustices suffered by Australia’s indigenous peoples.
The awakening came on a camping trip to Uluru in 1981, when he was moved to reassess his “whole relationship with the land and the landscape and understand that we had come from somewhere else, and we had dis-empowered a whole race of people when we arrived”.
His realisation was profound.
“I realised that this country that I grew up in, that I thought was my country, wasn’t,” he said.
Solid Rock reached No.1 nationally.
It remained in the Top 50 for 26 weeks.
Spirit Of Place followed in December.
It featured liner notes by previously unrecognised pop pundit, noted Australian historian Professor Manning Clark, who said “Goanna Band are not just entertainers – they are also serious… Their music is about that great human longing. They sing about the spirit of place in Australia.”
Spirit Of Place debuted on the Melbourne charts at #1; the first Australian album to do so since Skyhooks’ 1975 record-breaking blockbuster Living In The Seventies.
It reached No. 2 on the Australian Albums Chart within two weeks of its release and remained there for 10 weeks, alternating with Midnight Oil’s 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 for the No. 1 and No. 2 spot.
Spirit of Place would go onto achieve four times platinum sales – and it has remained in print ever since.
Razor’s Edge, the album’s second single; a study of substance abuse, was another bold statement, albeit a more personal one.
In April ‘83 they got political again, recording and releasing the song Let The Franklin Flow to support the campaign against the damming of Tasmania’s Franklin River.
It was a huge moment – one that galvanized the Conservation/Green movement in Australia – and Goanna provided the soundtrack.
And, it was another hit single.
Future Greens leader Dr Bob Brown, who headed the Tasmanian Wilderness Society, wrote the single’s B-side.
Goanna would disband in 1987 after countless more line-up changes – members who came and went included much-loved Daddy Cool guitarist Ross Hannaford – and a volatile relationship with their record company.
Several US tours ultimately failed to put the group on the international stage.
A second album, 1985’s underrated Oceania, produced by Little Feat’s Bill Payne after lengthy discussions with Mark Knopfler failed to overcome conflicting schedules, only just cracked the Top 30.
After its release, the group toured solidly for nearly a year and then virtually disappeared.
Burdened by debt, exhaustion and personal collapse, Goanna splintered.
A farewell tour ended, notably, with a performance at the Tamworth Country Music Festival in January 1987, with a line-up that included indigenous artists Bart Willoughby of No Fixed Address and Bunna Lawrie of Coloured Stone.
A disillusioned Howard disappeared into Aboriginal Australia, between Central Australia, the Kimberleys and North Queensland.
He would soon embark on a prolific solo career and continue his association with Indigenous artists, most notably as a producer for the likes of The Pigram Brothers, Jimmy Chi, Joe Geia, and as co-producer with Nash Chambers of Archie Roach’s 2006 album Journey.
Bygrave would briefly work with legendary Australian blues singer Wendy Saddington before launching a solo career.
She also worked with Yothu Yindi and appeared on several tracks on their Tribal Voice album, including the landmark single Treaty.
Marcia Howard would undertake a solo career of her own early in the new millennium.
She was named Artist of the Year at the Port Fairy Folk Festival in 2017.
In 1998, Goanna released a third album Spirits Return, for which the Howards and Bygrave were joined by a new line-up including former Country Radio and Dingoes guitarist Kerryn Tolhust.
It reflected the band’s ongoing interest in what it means to be Australian and in the world around us; it included a Song for East Timor.
Marcia Howard’s Sorry addressed the stolen generation, and Goanna performed the song at the first National Sorry Day at Parliament House in Canberra that year.
Soon after the band performed two shows for the Melbourne International Arts Festival at the Concert Hall, and then in 2002, a benefit in Geelong for the Balinese victims of the Bali Bombing.
In 2006, Howard performed Solid Rock as part of the Countdown Spectacular tour.
He was joined by his sister and Bygrave at the Melbourne concerts.
While it was a nice way of thanking Countdown and its audience for their support, it could not be Goanna’s swansong.
Pre-sale begins on Thursday 17 March with general tickets available from Monday 21 March.
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