Cover image: Paul Kelly at RAC Arena. Credit Karen Lowe

Paul Kelly with Lucinda Williams at RAC Arena, 26 August 2025

The first time I saw Paul Kelly, a friend’s brother couldn’t attend, so his parents invited me in his place. So began my love affair with perhaps Australia’s most beloved storyteller.

Looking at the audience on Tuesday, the many adults accompanied by their kids indicated a whole new generation of fans in the wings. That’s extra impressive on the eve of new album Seventy (out November 7).

Named for his 70^th birthday, it’s already spawned the single Rita Wrote a Letter, a sequel to much-loved How to Make Gravy, and Perth had the privilege of hearing it live for the first time ever. The continuing story of Joe and Rita, incisive takedowns like “You could never hold your temper and you always made it about you,” are ample proof Kelly hasn’t lost his knack for a good narrative.

Like a great curator, our headliner brought equally impressive supports, from energetic, exiting opener Fanny Lumsden’s early hoedown, to legendary Queen of Alt-Country, Lucinda Williams in the main slot.

From the moment her voice rang out around the packed Arena, it was clear Williams is the real deal. Frail at 72 but still animated enough to tell tales of her own, she reached deep into Grammy Award-winning album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road for the title track, Joy and Drunken Angel, the latter dedicated to hard-partying country singer- friend Blaze Foley, who was shot and killed in 1989.

(Noting that the record won “Best Contemporary Folk Album” in 1999 was a sly wink to the fact her brand of alternative country didn’t even exist in the mainstream then.)  

A pair of covers (While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Rockin’ in the Free World) were opportunity for Williams’ formidable band to shine, notably ex-Black Crowes axeman Marc Ford, whose fretboard workouts were nothing short of awe-inspiring. Mixed in with her own formidable catalogue of hits such as Fruits of My Labor and Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings, no one was left in doubt that we were in the presence of greatness.

That Paul Kelly looked so lithe, youthful and energetic was the night’s next great wonder. And for two hours he powered through deep cuts, recent material and some of the greatest Australian songs ever written in what’s been billed as his biggest tour yet.

The visuals were certainly stepped up for the likes of opener Houndstooth Dress and Rising Moon, the latter a stunning montage of the starry skies, clouds and red dirt of the Australian outback. Elsewhere his take on “favourite writer” William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 featured animations of skeletons, leaves and flowers depicting the cycle of life; while Every Day My Mother’s Voice was a touching tribute to Adam Goodes, whose many achievements and challenges were clear on screen.

But the biggest hits often stood on their own, more minimally, just as they did in the Oz pubs of the 80s and 90s where Kelly plied his trade. Before Too Long and Careless came early; the timeless run of To Her Door, Deeper Water, Dumb Things and that epic Gravy song ensured momentum to the last.

With central themes of Australiana and storytelling, from growing up in Adelaide (They Thought I Was Asleep) to the way late guitarist Steve Connolly co-wrote so many of Kelly’s signature licks (notably From St Kilda to Kings Cross), it was main set finale From Little Things Big Things Grow that won the night. The story of Aboriginal rights activist Vincent Lingiari was highlighted by Mervyn Bishop’s 1975 photo of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam pouring sand into Lingiari’s hands, effectively handing land back to the Gurindji people.

In the great Australian tradition of yarning, these are the tales we’ll continue to tell our kids. And they’ll tell their kids. Passing down stories and songs has been an Australian legacy for thousands of years, Kelly reminded us. He continues that tradition and encourages us to do the same.