By Kath Gannaway
LOCAL band Ewan Cloonan Union will strike a poignant note at the Rise Bushfire Relief Benefit Concert when they dedicate their newest song to a fellow musician who lost his life on Black Saturday.
The song Heat Wave is dedicated to Steve Fisher who, with his fiancee Kate Ansett, died at Toolangi.
The band has taken the C.J. Dennis poem Heat Wave originally published in The Herald on 9 February 1923, and given it a contemporary country folk arrangement and added some lyrics to suit current times.
The concert will take place at Healesville Racecourse on Sunday 19 April with a massive line-up of 15 bands and solo artists.
Acts include the Ploughboys, Brent Parlane, Phil Manning, The Heartstarters, Ruckus, Geoff Achison, The Coyotes and more.
Gates open at 10am and tickets are available from Ticketmaster on 136100, or at the gate.
The Ewan Cloonan Union will play at 10.30am, following opening artists, the ever-popular The Hannafords and preceding Warburton’s brilliant Dave Walker and the Blue Moon Lodge.
The words of Heat Wave will undoubtedly resonate.
Heat Wave
Day after day, week after burning week,
A ruthless sun has sucked the forest dry.
Morn after anxious morn men’s glances seek
The hills, hard-etched against a harder sky.
And the blossoms droop and die.
Menace is here, as day draws to its peak,
And, ‘mid the listless gums along the creek,
Hot little breezes sigh.
Today the threat took shape; the birds were dumb.
Once more, as sullen, savage morning broke,
The silence told that trembling fear had come,
To bird and beast and all the forest folk.
One little wisp of smoke
Far in the south behind the listless gum
Grew to a purple pall. Like some far drum,
A distant muttering broke.
Red noon beheld red death come shouting o’er
These once green slopes – a leaping, living thing.
Touched by its breath, tree after tall tree wore
A fiery crown, as tho’ to mock a king
A ghastly blossoming
Of sudden flame that died and was no more.
And, where a proud old giant towered of yore
Stood now a blackened thing.
Fierce raved the conquering flame, as demons rave,
Earth shook to thunders of the falling slain.
Brambles and bushes, once so bold and brave,
Shrank back, and writhed, and shrieked and shrieked again
Like sentient things in pain.
Gone from the forest all that kind spring gave…
And now, at laggard last, too late to save,
Comes soft, ironic rain.
So remember those who fought, those who fled and those who fell
And lost their all in that earthly hell
So beware, take care, prepare for the next heat wave
