Words by: Belinda Quick
Photos by: Samuel Phillips
“Maybe sometimes it feels like ‘What impact can I have in this world? I am only one person and most people don’t understand me.’ But everyone can use their voice to say their something – through whatever medium that is…” – Elizabeth Tambascio
Picture this: it’s the mid-’90s, in Adelaide, Australia. Grunge was a king ready to be uncrowned, baggy jeans paired with combat boots were the epitome of androgynous cool, and, in the pre-internet age, analogue versions of every pop cultural variety flourished. Concurrently, latch-key kids existed amongst an ever-present threat of Stranger Danger, roaming and riding until the streetlights came on, retreating to bedrooms to listen to CDs from rock and hip-hop artists of the day thereafter.
It was the perfect melting pot; Australia finally had free-flowing access to the world via airwaves and television screens, and young people were connected to the dichotomies of privilege and power, societal shift and systemic suppression. ‘The kids (weren’t) alright‘ and were about to make themselves heard; amongst the international heavyweights, for the first time, through the medium of our own national icons: a collective that included Adelaide’s own, TESTEAGLES.
Following the success of the festival’s debut, Big Day Out went national in 1993. By 1994, the headliner’s year of birth, Testes earned their place on the state’s stage; an honour that they enjoyed several more times nationwide, touring relentlessly from 1996’s Chum debut amongst Friends, into the new millennium. An even wilder time than when we started, nu-metal had truly usurped its ambivalent musical predecessor. Now in the new age of excess, Non Comprehendus was Y2K’s mantric battlecry.
In 2005, the halfway point of the noughties beckoned Testeagles’ intermission, but bore new fruit; in 2006, Melbourne’s BUSHIDÕ began pounding Mercina’s heart. With only half a stage on which to work, the audience are Thrown into the Fire by the trio, commanding Confrontation with iron fists draped in velvet gloves. Living Proof that Romeo can be both a lavish and brutal lover, My Disguise drops as I Idolise July’s newest release. Sauntering between lush overtures into Ronin attacks, Overcome by Bushido’s quintessential heavy Australian rock, I’m overjoyed at the wholly Original, perfectly balanced beginning to this extraordinary night.
Time waits for nobody, but, equally, it demands our patience. Rewarded for it, the familiar instrumental heartbeat of Stomp is counted in time by the crowds 1,2,3,4. ‘That’s an Adelaide-motherfucking home crowd‘, promulgating Propaganda all the way back to 1999 and the Seaford Soccer Club. As ready for M.A.D. as we were a quarter-century ago, older bodies ‘all good out there, all mothers and fathers now‘, who hold The Power to Wise Up usually, but not tonight.
TE’s in Style once again. As this generation’s influencers wonder, Gen X and Y demonstrate the answer to our secret: through music unique and unifying ‘we are all family‘, and ‘it’s fucking magic, I tell ya.’ That is what keeps us youthful, it’s in ‘my DNA’, more than a feeling, it has no Clone. Cast and crew together from day one, D offers a ‘heartfelt, I love you’. A Rebel with a cause, complimentary sentiments flow with the repetition of a Hammerdrill but with the liquidity and calm of a vast blue Ocean.
These are beyond Just Another Pop Song,
‘We’ve come a long, long way together, through the hard times and the good. We’ve got to celebrate it baby, and run a muck like we should!‘.
The bark is still as vicious as the bite of this Underdog, but needing it, frontman Matty takes a ‘sip of Adelaide water’. Coopers still fueling the Renegade in us all, we’re collectively ready to scream our warcry with vigour; twenty-five and ‘22 years of Non Comprehendus’, this still feels as though we’ve ‘got nothing to lose’.
‘What’s happened in the last 20 years of significance?’ A crowd member calls back, ‘We got old!’ but, ‘we’re all still here‘, despite living through one generational event, catastrophe, conflict or epidemic after another, this socio-cultural conglomerate we belong to is Like No Other. Proud to be part of it, have it embedded into the core of the person I am, forever ‘the new generation‘ to Turn That Shit Up, we do.
Amongst this army, who ‘see life like an endless journey’, bound together we’re left floating in the ether. ‘Don’t ever change, Adelaide‘, Dream Is Your Time and, there, we live like wild flowers; dancing together, forever ageless and, in unanimity, with understanding the perfect clarity of voice.
BUSHIDO
TESTEAGLES
