Paul KellyOne of Australia’s most legendary songwriters, Paul Kelly, returned to Kings Cross on Sunday (30 August) for a one-off, intimate performance at the Potts Point Hotel.
Joined by his nephew, Dan Kelly, the pair performed a massive 23-song set, per setlist.fm, and started the evening with a touching tribute to country icon Dolly Parton.
Paul Kelly took to the stage solo to open the show and performed Parton’s classic song, I Will Always Love You, a move that wasn’t on the printed setlist, according to setlist.fm. The cover is tender and classy, and you can check it out below.
Dolly Parton passed away at the age of 80 last Tuesday (25 August), following a “brief battle” with cancer.
In a tribute from The Music’s Liz Giuffre, she reminded us all:
Parton has been in the music industry for almost as long as there has been a music industry.
And not just that, she has MADE the industry—ensuring that female singer-songwriters have a clear path to success; ensuring that fans are respected across genre, era, generation and gender lines; and making millions, only to give it away again.
Reading programmes for children, inspired by her father who made a life for his family of 12 while remaining illiterate for his whole life? Yes, she did, via the Imagination Library. And at her request, in lieu of flowers, donations for more books, please.
Paul Kelly had plenty to say about his long-awaited return to Potts Point, the site where he’d ring in the deluxe edition of his latest album, Seventy.
“I haven’t played in Kings Cross for many years,” Kelly shared in a statement. “In the mid to late eighties, we played the Kardomah Café and The Manzil Room quite a few times.
“The Manzil Room was in the laneway behind The Potts Point Hotel. A wee hours sticky-carpet venue, attracting all the denizens of the night – street workers, bohemians, drug dealers, desperadoes, off-work musicians.”
He continued:
We’d play three sets, starting around 1 am. The painter Brett Whiteley sometimes dropped in to hear us. He had some expansive dance moves. My sister Anne, a Loreto nun, dutifully came to see us there once. Now that’s commitment! Maybe she came twice, I don’t remember. There’s a lot I don’t remember, though I do remember staggering out into the dawn light many a time after the last set to head up Darlinghurst Road for bacon and eggs at Una’s Café.
Una’s still there, but The Manzil is long gone. It’s a block of apartments, now. I wonder if the residents sometimes hear our chattering ghosts, the faint distant throb of our music.
Throughout the night, Paul and Dan Kelly performed classics like Sydney From A 727, Before Too Long, From St Kilda to Kings Cross, Dumb Things, To Her Door, How To Make Gravy, Leaps And Bounds, and much more.
A recently completed mural of Kelly, painted by Scottie Marsh, is on the venue's exterior wall and drew a sizeable crowd to the show last night.
@themusicau Paul Kelly live from Kings Cross
♬ original sound - themusicau
