Russell Crowe's Band vs. Masculinity vs. GOD: The Eternal Struggle

Russell Crowe’s a man who’s been through his fair share of ins and outs, ups and downs, highs and lows. It shows in his face and it’s evident upon hearing his resonant voice. Love him or hate him, it’s undeniable that he’s all man. Australia’s man. New Zealand’s our nature-strip as long as we keep telling ourselves it is. He’s successful, but never afraid to acknowledge his roots. He wears his suit well, yet seems as if he’d be comfortable dirtying it in the name of passion. Gossip rags declare him a total sex symbol but I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot barge pole.

Crowe was on his best behaviour the night I witnessed his take on adult contemporary rock’n’roll. Upon arriving at the dimly lit Black Lodge that is Manchester Lane, I withdrew to a corner with my glass of red. An audience of primarily well-dressed, socially lubricated middle-aged women dined on fine food and chattered with their husbands and friends. Fragmented lead-light artwork hang near the rear of the stage in an effort to transform the wine bar into some kind of makeshift chapel of rock. It seemed fitting to shut my eyes and say my prayers.

Support on the night came from the unassuming Darren Percival who took to the stage with a skip and a grin. He spat at the mic, stringing the pitched and percussive vocal syllables together by stomping on foot-switches connected to his trusty four-hundred buck sampler. His spontaneous rhythmic creations were surprisingly rich – once the a cappella backing tracks had been punched in on-the-fly, Percival unpretentiously rode those soulful beatbox loops to a place where all could feel free to relax and marvel at his accessible, Graceland-esque audio wizardry. Percival was angling for some crowd participation during a cover of Bob Marley's ‘Stir It Up’ and for all his doo-wop inventiveness he deserved it. The demographic, however, were more interested in finishing their tucker, and so Percival had to settle for their polite yet reserved appreciation.

Percival alighted the stage after impressing the pants off nearly every well-fed person in the venue. I pondered star-power as I surveyed the carefully arranged instruments that waited like offerings on the altar-like stage. Eyes darted ‘round for the man of the moment – these people were so hungry for their A-list idol it was as if they'd forgotten that Crowe sings our national anthem semi-regularly. Seems kicking around Hollywood constitutes success nowadays – are we as Australians kissing too much Academy arse (spelled ‘a-r-s-e’) if we feel unworthy each time Russell sets his feet on our soil or brings his tunes to our upmarket city hotspots? The crowd surely seemed blessed to be in the same building as the man who grew out of the boy-next-door. Twenty-one years have passed since Crowe first shone on Neighbours and incidentally, 21 years have passed since I took my very first breath. I was easily the youngest person in the venue that night – does the ability to confuse man with God develop with age?

Crowe’s new band is called The Ordinary Fear Of God – evidently a reshuffling of the key players and game plan did not constitute an acronym change after Thirty Odd Foot Of Grunts. His songs depict him as a mere mortal with human doubts and a love of the backyard banal, yet the nervous tension of the Manchester Lane audience elevated him to demigod status. Fair dinkum? Jesus was a star, or was at the very least born under one. Does Crowe’s decision to clothe his music in the imagery of churches and damnation reflect his new role as untouchable cinematic ‘saviour’? Or is it merely an effort to appear humble and to indicate his self-perceived affinity with sage dad-rockers such as Nick Cave? I don't have the answers. I'm only 21. Russell's seen it all.

There's a chance this loose cannon will identify me as hack journo scum and I'll cop a blow to the head, I thought, surreptitiously fumbling with my dying biro and borrowed pad of post-it notes when Crowe’s six-piece ensemble eventually presented themselves, dressed head-to-toe in black. A close friend of mine who has never heard TOFOG guessed that they'd sound a little like Mike And The Drifters, the band from Degrassi High Wheels’ biological father played in – she wasn't too far off the mark. Crowe led his skilled musos through a series of straight-up, no-frills, soft-rock songs and refrained from lighting up onstage, instead opting to cradle a number of glasses of red over the course of the evening. Beyond MOR, Crowe's outfit unleashed song after song of finely tuned and precisely poised rock for the whole road. The majority of punters sat with their meals and only a few rose during the livelier numbers to shake it – at one stage Crowe demanded the house lights be turned up to examine the patrons he deemed unusually subdued. He’s ours! He’s our prodigal son returned from Hollywood Babylon!

His singing voice is not terribly idiosyncratic, but he nevertheless demonstrated excellent technical control, remaining utterly professional and genuinely pleased to be performing. A propulsive cover of ‘Another Girl, Another Planet’ proved to be a charged highlight that Crowe evidently enjoyed dropping. He’s a true blue homegrown larrikin – after asking the audience if they can hear the trumpet and upon receiving an affirmative response, he implored the sound dude in jest to promptly turn it down. The six-part a cappella drinking song inked by Crowe one arvo on a beer coaster in memory of a dead friend resonated throughout the room, equal parts solemnity and kudos. I'll raise my glass to that.

Always a ladies’ man, Crowe punctuated his patter between songs with cuss-words, reflecting on being ejected from a pub and put into police custody during his days working on that film about Doc Martens and “bald people”. He fondly described the sliced tomato and Vegemite on Turkish bread he regularly ordered from a Sydney cafe as “more addictive than heroin!” More unusually, at one stage Crowe even tried on the guise of a warped American evangelist, coaxing ‘amens’ and ‘hallelujahs’ from his faithful congregation, urging them to spend up at fast food restaurants in order to redeem salvation. There was something refreshing about seeing this actor manage to wrangle a convincing Dubya drawl after so much husband rock. Voices would pop forth from the vast throng interrupting Crowe’s dialogue, each star-struck lady vying to initiate a conversation with the untameable icon.

Crowe's self-labelled “noisy songs” are essentially gutsier models of his established rootsy formula – if you loved The Commitments you'll dig this schtick. One of these dirty nuggets, ‘Testify’ is the most blatant example of Crowe's newfound quasi-religious direction, with a sing-a-long chorus mentioning 'preachers' and 'rivers' and all those familiar themes. In fact, no less than three songs TOFOG showcased mentioned rivers, evoking the mid-life acoustic soul-searching of Neighbours' Karl Kennedy. Do all middle-aged men yearn to return to a bubbling, everchanging wellspring or is this fountain of youth reserved solely for Neighbours alumni? Time will tell as I count down the years.

Crowe's experiences have collected like volumes in the library of his life and it appears from his autobiographical songwriting that he's spent many long hours fastidiously poring over these tomes in an effort to graduate to the afterlife as a perfect man, whatever that may be. Setting memories of deceased relatives to music in an effort to cheat death may be a noble move for this gent to make, but an ode to the wives and girls of the audience thanking them for daring to take on the “weight of a man” seems a little patronising. Are we all such a hassle? Sure we can be hairy and sweaty and gruff at times, but is it fair to equate masculinity with being a burden? What do I know? I’m not married and this is not intended for me.

Crowe left the stage after his obligatory encore having played the roles of man as menace, mate, husband and vagabond. As an actor perpetually in transit, it is Crowe's calling to constantly adapt? His performance is that of a comfortable yet flawed man, gazing over his experiences and embracing his maleness in an effort to consolidate his internal adult crises. Is he going to Heaven or Hell? I'll have another listen in 25 years when I know what I'm talking about and get back to you.

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