Details

The pleasures and pains of drinking, painted with words and music.

‘He started up his drinking. Then they started fighting. He took it pretty badly. She took both the kids.’

No other songwriter can evoke the consequences of intoxicated decisions quite like Paul Kelly. Take the marriage struggles in ‘To Her Door’, the self-loathing larrikinism in ‘King of Fools’, the slapstick globetrotting in ‘Every F*cking City’ and the domestic violence of ‘Sweet Guy’, just to name a few.

Paul recently released a mix-tape style album called Drinking, one of a series of themed records to appear from him over the past year. In it he has drawn from his unmatched discography and trove of unreleased recordings to brew a barrel of songs dedicated to the grape and the grain.

Now, he’s immortalising the project live for the first time with a full band, in two very special shows at Melbourne Recital Centre as part of RISING.

Although the show often explores the dark and destructive side of alcohol, there is much light and shade throughout. As Paul says:

‘I’m a drinker. For me it is one of the great pleasures of life. A glass of wine with dinner, the first beer after hard physical work or sport, a dark ale and a whisky on a cold night. The beaded bubbles winking at the brim of the glass on the surf club balcony looking out over the sea. A little buzz on. The camaraderie of family and friends. Farewells and welcomes and ceremonies.’

So raise a glass. Or if you’ve passed up the big drink, come armed with all you know.

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Artist

Paul Kelly