If you listen to local breakfast radio you will no doubt be familiar with a regular caller who, for the sake of this letter, I’ll name Gerard (not his real name).
Gerard is a well-spoken, highfalutin, resident of our great city who has been fortunate enough to ‘spend millions’ buying his Newcastle beachside apartment.
While on air, he has a lot to say about his glorious apartment, high-end wine and weekend easy listening, but for the most part he complains.
You see, Gerard claims to love this city but he has a big problem with the rest of us.
[x_pullquote type=”left”]Gerard claims to love this city but he has a big problem with the rest of us.[/x_pullquote]And if you’re one of us, you’ll know who you are. You’re a person who enjoys live music, has fun at outdoor concerts, makes noise sometimes, and once in a while goes out to do something more invigorating than sitting in a quiet room sipping Grange and conversing in hushed tones.
The thing is, Gerard recently went on air, again, with the intention of complaining on behalf of every inner city resident of Newcastle (or so he says…), about the upcoming Supercars event. But while he was at it, he also managed to label the recent Live at the Foreshore event as having created ‘offensive demonic music’ that inconceivably interrupted his serene afternoon.
Offensive. Demonic. Music.
Just to catch you up, Live at the Foreshore featured artists like Dragon, 1927 and Steve Kilbey. Hardly demonic, and yet Gerard seemed convinced the event had the potential to conjure up Satan himself. I wonder if anyone has let Steve K. know that his classic song ‘Under the Milky Way’, originally performed by The Church, is now being associated with demonism? Ironic, is it not?
[x_pullquote type=”right”]The inner city of Newcastle is just that, a city centre, it is not a residential estate.[/x_pullquote]The sad thing is, it isn’t just Gerard. There seems to be a movement of people out there all hell bent on investing in inner city real estate and then complaining profusely about any kind of activity that isn’t related to art exhibitions or market stalls.
Here’s the thing I want to say to those residents, and I mean it in the nicest possible way – the inner city of Newcastle is just that, a city centre, it is not a residential estate.
Now here’s the question I want to ask. If you want to live in a quiet, peaceful neighbourhood – why are you investing in property that is located above music venues or adjacent to community infrastructure and then complaining about the noise?
WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT?
If you want to live by the waterfront, great, go ahead, there’s plenty of beautiful homes and apartments at places like Lake Macquarie and the Central Coast where you won’t hear a peep.
But if you want to live in the middle of the sixth biggest city in the country, then guess what, it comes with a soundtrack. The title is called life.
A city has a role to play. It is an epicentre, a central location, it is a place with a job to do and that job is to provide a host of activities and events that don’t occur in suburban or rural areas.
[x_pullquote type=”left”]If you want to live in the middle of the sixth biggest city in the country, then guess what, it comes with a soundtrack. The title is called life.[/x_pullquote]By that title, our city belongs not just to those whose address has 2300 on it, but also to everyone living adjacent to it, in the outer areas, and even on the north and south coast. The City of Newcastle serves hundreds of thousands, not just residents who happen to live ‘up that the end of the street’.
But I get it. Planners want to boost the local economy by creating a city that attracts the kind of demographic that can afford to invest millions of dollars into beachside real estate, the thinking being, they’ll bring their money with them. The only catch is, in order to make those properties appealing to the people who can afford them, our culture needs to shift.
Well here’s my thing. That’s bullshit.
We are Newcastle. We don’t want to be Del Boca Vista where Mr and Mrs Seinfeld so famously went to retire. We don’t want to drive Cadillacs, eat dinner at 4pm and go to bed at 6pm. We don’t want to tip toe around the streets fearful that if we, God forbid, should want to see a live band that Council officers might burst in mid-song shouting, “Someone’s complained, it’s too loud, we’re shutting this place down. Everyone out. Now!”
This is not Del Boca Vista, this is not whatever town the movie Footloose was set in. This is Newcastle. ‘Hey, this is our town’, remember…?
If you don’t like live music that’s fine, but don’t set up house above a venue. Hello?
You are being selfish. Many of you claim to love our city and yet you are determined to tie shackles around our progress because the process of moving forward is too noisy. You claim to love our city and yet you refuse to embrace who we are or celebrate our heritage.
Listen up. The character of Newcastle has been built on the foundation of hard work, family values, pride, a passionate football culture and live music. That’s who we are.
We are known for our work in the mines, on the docks, and amongst the hot molten pits at steelworks like the BHP and MolyCop. Sometimes we have dirty hands and often we swear, but we love our city and each other.
We are known for throwing a citywide party to celebrate our Newcastle Knight’s Grand Final win and sticking with our team whether it be through the glory days or the toughest of times.
We are known for launching some of the best rock bands in the country from Silverchair to The Screaming Jets and DV8 and if we couldn’t claim them then by God we’d support them, from the top of our lungs.
Things change and cultures shift. I like a good drop of wine as much as Gerard and I love the idea of spending Saturday night at a good restaurant or bar, but we don’t have to desecrate the history of our city to accommodate change.
What we have to be is just a little tolerant.
Sure every now and again we’re a little noisy, have a bit of fun, and some nights we want to go out and see a live band. We worked hard to build this city and surely we deserve to enjoy the fruits of our labour, even just a little?
But if you can live with that, then we have a lot to offer.
There’s nowhere like Newcastle and we want you to feel at home, but it’s our home too.
These days there is much talk of the need for tolerance within our society. Words like acceptance, unity and equality are the key phrases that our leaders are using to help shape our future.
So if it is culture you seek, then can we all just stop for a minute and think about it. There’s no reason we can’t work together.
What if you were to embrace the soundtrack of our city while you relax in the great cafes and wine bars? Maybe go and take a listen to some of the local bands after you enjoy a fabulous meal in one of the restaurants.
[x_pullquote type=”right”]If you claim to love Newcastle, then really love Newcastle[/x_pullquote]And if you don’t like the events that take place every now and again on weekends, try to be a little understanding– it’s only a few hours, or at worst a couple of days. When it’s all over you’ll still live in an amazing city, graced with ocean views and the fresh smell of salt hanging in the air.
Modern culture is created when forward-thinking, progressive people take some of the old and mix it with some of the new in such a way that we can begin to appreciate the entire journey of a city – not just where it is going, but where it has come from and the people who worked so hard to build it.
So if you claim to love Newcastle, then really love Newcastle. Love its stillness and its commotion, love its art and its sometimes loud music, love its beauty and its scars, love its future and embrace its past – love it they way we do, love it the way we always have.
