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ICEHOUSE Icehouse Plays Flowers - Live

Icehouse could’ve been called Industrial Chilli Initially, Flowers released their debut album Icehouse in Australia and New Zealand in 1980. It sold incredibly well, quickly becoming the highest-selling debut album by an Australian band at the time of release, which immediately attracted the attention of international record labels. The band eventually signed with Chrysalis Records and Great Southern Land –The Concert Series shows: Feb 11 at Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl, and Feb 18 at the Riverstage in Brisbane. Words Bryget Chrisfield This month we’re untangling a phenomenon, with a look at Icehouse’s thrilling live recording of their 1980 belter Flowers ; meanwhile, you can catch Icehouse live at one of their rescheduled

In 2020, Icehouse performed their jaw-droppingly brilliant ‘Icehouse Plays Flowers’ show to mark St Kilda Festival’s 40th edition. It was also a celebration for the band: 40 years since their debut LP, released under the band’s OG name Flowers (and titled Icehouse ). Since Flowers had played the inaugural St Kilda Festival, it was agreed that Icehouse’s setlist should mimic the band’s performance back in 1980. As such, many songs from the Icehouse album were included alongside a couple of surprise cover versions, which represented the band’s repertoire back when they were cutting their teeth on the pub circuit as a cover band.Wish you were there?Well, the good news is that this magical gig was later released as a double album/CD: Icehouse Plays Flowers – Live .

Year 2020

Bowie hand-selected Icehouse as support One of the awesome covers on

Icehouse Plays Flowers – Live is Bowie’s The Jean Genie , and the late Starman’s influence on Iva ain’t no secret. But did you know that Bowie invited Icehouse to support him on his 1983 ‘Serious Moonlight’ tour after hearing their high charting European hit Hey Little Girl ? Sadly, the Sydney band’s own touring commitments meant they were only able to support Bowie on the UK/European leg of his world tour. But during this time, Bowie passed on some

when the label conducted a name search (not super-easy pre-Google, we imagine), they discovered a Scottish band called The Flowers was active at the time. During Jon Lamoreux’s excellent podcast The Hustle , Iva Davies revealed that Chrysalis held an internal competition to rename the band. The winning entry was Industrial Chilli, which Iva still reckons is “one of the worst band names I’ve ever heard in my life”. So they went with Icehouse, since the title was emblazoned across their debut record’s cover and was therefore already familiar to the band’s considerable Antipodean fanbase.

sage advice to Iva: “You never know who’ll be listening”. Also, back when Icehouse were called Flowers, Iva’s guitar hero was one of The Spiders from Mars, Mick Ronson. “That was the sound that I was trying to get on the Flowers album, and that remained my benchmark for many years,” he revealed during an interview.

FUN FACT: Icehouse were

also invited to tour with

Peter Gabriel – another one of Iva’s heroes and a fellow Fairlight devotee – at this time, but the dates clashed, so they chose Bowie.

Iva Davies, 1980

12 FEBRUARY 2023

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