An Evening with Wendy Matthews
When Wendy Matthews was four-years-old, she saved up all her pocket money to buy her first record. The year was 1964, the album, A Hard Day’s Night by the Beatles.
By Anna Dowd
“I remember assembling the family in the living room insisting we have a dance party to this new record!”
The acclaimed Canadian-born Australian singer says for as long as she can remember, music was what moved her – it was all she was interested in. And so, from joining her first band at 15, it was what she pursued.
“It’s all I’ve ever done, it’s all I know how to do. Music has always been there for me.”
It’s this lifetime of musical immersion and artistry that Matthews brings to the stage this month for one evening at the Darwin Entertainment Centre.
Press play on hit songs such as ‘The Day You Went Away’, and ‘I Don’t Want to Be With Nobody But You’, and it’d take some effort to find an Aussie who doesn’t recognise Matthews for the soulful expressive voice she is.
But with almost four decades in the music industry, seven ARIA awards, 19 hit singles and collaborations with artists from Cher to Tim Finn, she says there’s no way her younger self could’ve seen what was coming.
“I get young people asking for advice, saying ‘you know the way it works,’ and honestly, I don’t. Every person’s path is just so different, and also things are changing all the time. You’ve just got to keep doing it really.”
Pretty humble for someone with seven platinum albums, whose voice was once described by Peter Garrett as “to vocal chords what the Daintree is to the wilderness.”
With her piano and guitar player of several decades in tow, Matthews says the Darwin show is their first gig in eight months because of COVID, which only adds to the excitement of reconnecting with a Top End crowd.
With a handful of songs from each of her albums, she says the acoustic trio sound should create a pretty intimate concert, somewhat reminiscent of visiting old friends.
“I love the audience in Darwin, they’ve always been just so appreciative and relatable.”
Not unlike the songstress herself, an Australian musical icon, still following the call of what moves her.
An Evening with Wendy Matthews
WHEN SAT 28 NOV | 8PM
AT DARWIN ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE
COST $49 | $45 CONC
INFO yourcentre.com.au
