Jimmy Barnes has rocked the house with a performance on the steps of Parliament to raise awareness of music industry hardships with politicians.
The concept for the performance came from Liberal Party backbencher Ewan Jones, the Federal Member for Herbert, covering Townsville.
The show also featured performances from Josh Pyke and Suze DeMarchi with Barnes cranking up the Cold Chisel classic ‘Flame Trees’ to an audience of pollies including Bronwyn Bishop and Albo.
“Musicians struggle for most of their careers,” Barnes told the ABC. “There needs to be more funding around the arts, for music, for rock music. I’ve seen a lot of great musicians, a lot of great songwriters, come and starve to death and disappear.”
Evan Jones said that this was “the people’s music” at “the people’s house”. He cited that of Australia’s $15 billion a year music industry only 2% of musicians make more than $200,000 a year and that 78% make less than $10,000 a year.
He called for policy changes and especially an investigation into lock-out laws that could devastate the industry.
Barnes told the ABC that the audience was “a tough crowd”.
Jimmy Barnes’ next show is this Saturday in Port Macquarie for the Red Hot Summer Tour.
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