Live Hottest 100s & 1000s. ETCETERA and Canberra Theatre Centre. The Courtyard Studio, Canberra Theatre Centre, Friday, February 8: Live DJ and Happy Hour from 5.30pm, podcast from 7.30pm. canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 62752700.
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Are you a fan of Triple J and its long-running Hottest 100? Feeling nostalgic about music from near the turn of the century? Do you love artists like Powderfinger, Killing Heidi, Pearl Jam and Fatboy Slim? The next show in the Canberra Theatre Centre's ETCETERA series might be just the ticket.
Live Hottest 100s and 1000s is a live, in-theatre recording of the Sydney podcast Hottest 100s and 1000s.
Hosted by longtime friends Adam Buncher, Andrew McDonald, David James Young and Nathan Harrison since it began in 2014, the podcast has discussed and dissected more than 600 songs from the Triple J Hottest 100, one of the largest annual music polls in the world. They are up to the 1999 list.
Young, a music and arts writer, says, "We discuss the songs in [reverse] order - the first episode of the season is 100 to 96, the second 95 to 91. When were offered the live show ... we wanted to make a special one for Canberra so we chose the top five songs of 1999."
The episode will be recorded for use in the appropriate slot later in 2019.
Young says "every year is a fascinating time capsule", revealing as it does what was popular among Triple J's listeners at a particular time.
"1999 was coming towards the end of a massive decade in music," he says, with bands such as Powderfinger and Killing Heidi making their mark.
The latter, he says, is "a particularly special one - discovered by Triple J, these very young kids from regional Australia ended up with the number two song in the entire country."
That debut single, Weir, was 36th in the ARIA end-of-year top 100 selling singles and went platinum with sales of 70,000.
British alternative rock band Placebo's Every You Every Me - featured on the soundtrack of Cruel Intentions, the teen movie update of Dangerous Liaisons - was "one of the songs I very distinctly remember of that time," the 28-year-old Young says.
"I've always really, really enjoyed it - it's a strong pop song."
Another movie soundtrack song he remembers is Powderfinger's These Days, which was written for the comedy crime film Two Hands. Originally the B-side to the single Passenger. It became the first B-side to top the Triple J Hottest 100
The Tenants' You Shit Me To Tears, Young says, "I discovered a little later - I wasn't listening to a lot of ska around that year."
He came to appreciate it later.
More information, contextualisation and discussion, and the rest of the songs, can be left to the event itself. As for the participants in the podcast, Young says their tastes vary - "Andrew's more into industrial music, Adam likes hip hop, Nathan loves electronic and I listen to pop music."
He says it's always interesting to see how their discussions go. They don't rehearse or talk about what they're going to say beforehand: "You never know what you're going to get."
Not that it's totally freewheeling: "Adam is also our producer and editor."
Young and Harrison are musicians themselves. Harrison is in the group Applespiel and Young, who has been a solo artist and band member, has been to Canberra on occasion, performing at Phoenix ("It was really, really cool") and the Pot Belly.
He recalls performing in the ACT with "a really great DIY group called Mulgara."
Since Hottest 100s and 1000s will be in its seventh season and just up to 1999, a decade after the Hottest 100 began, the podcast is in no danger of running out of material.
Top 5 of the Hottest 100 - 1999
- Powderfinger - These Days
- Killing Heidi - Weir
- The Tenants - You Shit Me To Tears
- Fatboy Slim - Praise You
- Placebo - Every You Every Me