[press release from The Project Group]
The desire to mark the anniversary of the passing of one of Australia’s greatest contemporary song writers has inspired a new feature-length rockumentary which will have its world premiere at next month’s 2009 Adelaide International Film Festival.
It’s raining pleasure, the first feature length film by Sydney producer/director Steven Levett, documents a four-night reunion of seminal 1980s Australian band, The Triffids, and an impressive line-up of guest singers and performers at the Metro Theatre during the Sydney Arts Festival in January 2008.
It marked the band’s first Australian concert performances in almost 20 years.
The four concerts were staged to celebrate the song-writing genius of The Triffids late lead singer, David McComb, who died in February, 1999.
Steven Levett said he didn’t want the unique event to pass without a permanent record being made.
“Next month marks the tenth anniversary of David McComb’s death and a documentary of the Sydney reunion concerts was a timely tribute,” said Levett.
“Once I decided to do it, the project came together remarkably quickly thanks to the support of the band, the enthusiasm of fellow film-makers and financial contributions from passionate Triffids fans from around the world.”
“I think the result is a documentary that really captures the special qualities of David’s songwriting.”
The documentary combines concert footage recorded over two nights with revealing interviews with original members of The Triffids and other performers including Mick Harvey from the Bad Seeds, Steve Kilbey of The Church and Toby Martin from Youth Group.
The concerts were shot by six cameras (1080p high definition) and the documentary features the camera work of Director of Photography Paul Kolsky, and respected cinematographers Paul J Warren, Tony Wilson, Damien Beebe, Nicola Daley and Delphine Dumas.
The resulting wide-screen, big-budget feel of the documentary belies its tiny $A30,000 budget.
“I am passionate about music and this is very much a passion project,” said Levett.
“What we achieved with a shoe-string budget was phenomenal. In fact it was less than shoe-string – we only had the air in the shoe box!”
The soundtrack features a 40-track digital recording engineered by Bob Wheatley which captures lushly detailed performances.
“The thing about The Metro concerts was that they were ensemble performances featuring orchestrated arrangements, so the quality of the sound recording was vital,” said Levett.
Among many outstanding performances captured for the film are Mick Harvey singing Seabirds and McComb’s solo release Setting You Free, Rob Snarski performing material from the Blackeyed Susans – the band in which he and McComb wrote songs together – in addition to renditions of Hell of a Summer and Red Pony.
Steve Kilbey of The Church sings the Triffids’ biggest hit, Wide Open Road.
Band member “Evil” Graham Lee says everyone had to dig deep within themselves to do the songs justice.
“The level of performance on this thing is very high. I think Dave would have been very chuffed to hear the songs sung like that,” he said.
Levett believes it’s raining pleasure will lead to a reassessment of David McComb, The Triffids and their contribution to music.
“Although they have received critical recognition with their recent induction into the Australian Recording Industry Association’s Hall of Fame, I believe The Triffids are still generally under-recognised in the history of Australian music.”