Australia has a rich pantheon of rock heroes; from Bon Scott to Barnesy, Billy Thorpe to Shirley Strachan, the Aussie musical landscape is filled with larger than life larrikins who went hard and took their fans along for the ride.
Most of those iconic figures are men. Australia has female rock stars – Suze DeMarchi, Ella Hooper and Adalita Srsen – but their stories have, for the most part, been framed differently.
While they may have displayed a similar middle-finger-brandishing attitude, they have never been deified for it to the degree their male counterparts have.
Performer Sheridan Harbridge has spent a good portion of her career making sure Australia’s “disobedient girls” and “difficult women” have their stories told.
“They’re just trying to lead, and for that they’re labelled as difficult,” she said.
“We love our male ratbags, but when it’s a woman they come under a different sort of exposure.
“I’ve always tried to revise how we see a lot of ‘difficult women’ on stage…I feel honoured to tell the story of women who forged that path so I could be here.”
There could be no better subject than Geelong’s very own rock goddess Chrissy Amphlett..
Harbridge’s latest show Amplified: The Exquisite Rock and Rage of Chrissy Amphlett explores the Divinyls frontwoman’s story.
“Chrissy did not call herself an activist in any way…(but) those sort of women who step ahead and go ‘I’m going to say something and it’s important’ are ripe for exposure and attack,” she said.
“She took a lot of heat in the press and had to put up such an armor to survive that. And I think that was at a huge personal cost, how she had to live – fist clenched, swinging – in that environment.”
Premiered at Melbourne’s Rising Festival in June last year, Amplified has received critical acclaim for its presentation of a cultural icon who refused to accept society’s rules.
“Chrissy was standing out front of a band going, ‘this is how women can and should live’,” Harbridge said.
“She didn’t hold back on revealing the subversive and difficult parts of being a woman.”
Amplified: The Exquisite Rock and Rage of Chrissy Amphlett is at Geelong Arts Centre on 12-13 February.
