This story is featured in CityBeat's March 20 print edition.
The first live concert I remember experiencing as a kid was a Men at Work show at Timberwolf Amphitheater, the venue next to Kings Island. It was Aug. 19, 1983. My dad took my brother and me, both of us excited to see our favorite band at the time. Soon-to-be-huge INXS played before their Aussie counterparts, but it was the evening’s openers, local heroes The Raisins, who left a deeper impression: Rob Fetters’ guitar gymnastics yielded wild screams from the sizable contingent of females in attendance.
It was a surreal experience watching actual human beings perform the same songs that would emanate from my vinyl copies of Men at Work’s two albums, 1981’s debut Business as Usual and 1983’s Cargo. Frontman Colin Hay looked even more diminutive from our faraway seats than he did in the MTV videos for “Who Can It Be Now?” and “Down Under.” But his distinctive vocal delivery and the band’s crafty, new wave-infused take on Australian pub rock came through loud and clear, the versions of “Overkill” and “It’s a Mistake” both rougher and more visceral than their recorded counterparts, ushering in my lifelong love of live music in the process.
Men at Work would implode a few years later, but Hay has continued to crank out solo records (15, to be exact) and tour consistently ever since. His most recent album, 2022’s Now and the Evermore, is a lush affair, with guitars, organ, strings and horns intermingling with that familiar vocal inflection, which is not as acutely Australian as it was back in the day. And while Hay’s solo output has never come close to the commercial heights of Men at Work’s apex (Business as Usual has sold more than six million copies in the U.S. alone and it won a grammy for Best New Artist), it’s allowed him an outlet for his seemingly endless supply of hooks and melodies.
If previous tours are any indication, expect a mix of Men at Work classics, tunes from across Hay’s solo work and a couple covers, all of which should sound stellar amid the Taft Theatre’s storied environs.
Colin Hay plays Taft Theatre on March 28 at 8 p.m. Info: tafttheatre.org.
