My cultish love for Ange Postecoglou

 

Normally I am only a follower of Adelaide United and the Socceroos. However, this year has finally given me a reason to support an English Premier League side which is Tottenham Hotspur predominantly due to the presence of Ange Postecoglou. It is great to see Tottenham have such a good start to the season and although there have been recent struggles due to the injury crisis of the Chelsea game I am sure it will be viewed as the 3-0 lost to Melbourne Victory moment. The lost that cement Ange style of play and Ange leadership of the club.

 

The first time I saw Ange Postecoglou was on SBS during the TV show The World Game and saw him self-destructing on live TV during his infamous interview with Craig Foster after failing to qualify Australia for the U-17 and U-20 World Cup which led him be unemployable in Australian professional football. My main impression was that Craig Foster was behaving unprofessionally, but Ange lost his cool. I can’t imagine at the time that he will become my all-time favourite Football manager.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWGNPFI-MtE

 

The first time I began to appreciate Ange Postecoglou as a manager was watching my side Adelaide United play Brisbane Roar on 6 November 2010. Adelaide United were a decent side that season and finished 3rd in the ladder. However, Brisbane Roar led by Ange Postecoglou made my team look like a joke dominating the match 4-0 with only 10 players. It was the best football I have ever seen an Australian side play where I was witnessing attacking Tika taka possession-based football. When we were 1-0 down Reinaldo received a red card which gave me hope that Adelaide United could come back from the game but instead of that, Brisbane Roar played better and continued to attack without any fear of conceding a goal and scored 3 more goals to demolish our side. When Tottenham was down to 10 men against Luton, I had absolute confidence that Tottenham would still win the match. Due to the brilliant style of football, I started watching Brisbane Roar play in conjunction with Adelaide United and they became my second team. This was the start of my joining the cult of Ange Postecoglou which was finalised when Australia won the 2015 Asian Cup.

 

Ange Postecoglou has now developed a devoted cult-like following among Australian football supporters. It's not just because he is a successful Australian manager or the first Australian to coach in the EPL. Graham Arnold, Patrick Kisnorbo, or Kevin Muscat would not inspire a similar following. Ange Postecoglou is not just a manager but also a symbol and representation of the hopes and dreams of Australian football fans. He embodies our dream that one day, Australian football will reach its potential, win the World Cup, and dominate the sporting landscape instead of AFL or Rugby Code.

The legendary Australian football figure Johnny Warren had the famous quote, 'I'm sick of us saying, 'When are we going to qualify for the World Cup?' When are we going to win the World Cup?' which captures the frustration and dreams of football fans in Australia. However, this was an expression from a retired player who was now a pundit. Ange Postecoglou is the first Australian manager with any degree of success who represents the ambition, dreams, and, unfortunately, the frustration of that quote. He has tried to fulfil Johnny Warren's dream.

 

To set the cultural context of the Brisbane Roar's success, there is a nationwide inferiority complex regarding Australian football. Australia doesn't win by dominating the game and playing attacking passing football. Australians win with fighting spirit and heart, but not with skill. Beautiful football is what we watch overseas at 4 a.m., not in Australia. Australian football is simply not skilful enough to play like Barcelona. The Golden Generations made some inroads in that belief, it was largely the prevailing belief among Australian football fans.

 

Ange Postecoglou's philosophy, which he maintained throughout his career, is that to be the best team in the world, you must play like the best team in the world. He would show footage of peak Barcelona dismantling Real Madrid 5-0 and tell the Brisbane Roar players that this is the standard he expects. If the team failed and lost playing that style, then the players could learn how to improve to become the best. Ange learns as the manager how to improve the team through recruitment, and later with the Socceroos, he learned how the nation has to improve to develop players to become the best in the world.

 

Ange Postecoglou was considered, quite frankly, naive and insane to challenge the cultural inferiority complex of Australia that Australian players aren't good enough and this showed that in his first season, he finished second bottom and he received significant resistance within the club and criticism from the public. However, he was able to win over the players and prove the critics wrong by becoming the greatest A-League team in history. The quickness of his success in implementing the style at Tottenham is not a surprise to me because it is easier to implement an attacking football style in the elite end of the game compared to the culturally entrenched barriers, he faced with Brisbane Roar. This is what people overlook when dismissing his CV based on the league he is in. While it’s not easier to win the A-League compared to EPL. It is harder getting an A-League side to play like peak Barcelona and win compared to coaching an elite well-resource EPL team. It is of note that whenever he "steps up" in league quality, the time it takes to implement his style becomes shorter. 

 

When he coached the Socceroos initially, he felt that he was part of a movement to reinvent the way Australia plays the game of football and to reach the goal of winning the World Cup by playing like World Cup champions. If he didn't succeed in that goal during his coaching career, at the very least, he would create the framework that the Australian national team can play in that World Cup-winning style. His success would lead to the wider football community in Australia developing players who would thrive in that style so that future generations could win the World Cup.

 

Now the narrative among Ange Postecoglou fans was at the first sign of poor results, there were calls from critics, fans, and board members to play more 'pragmatically,' and he realized he wasn't in a movement but on a personal crusade, which he wasn't interested in and was taking a toll on him. He completed his job of qualifying for the World Cup and then resigned. His replacement by a pragmatic, defensive manager in Bert van Marwijk from the FFA essentially represented the death of Ange Postecoglou and Johnny Warren's dream for Australian football. The intention shifted from developing a framework to win the tournament to merely being competitive in it. Ange Postecoglou became a martyr of Australia’s hope and dream to become a dominant football nation.

 

Although there is truth to that narrative it does obscure the reality that performance had deteriorated towards the latter stint of his coaching period with the Socceroos. The team struggled to adapt to him changing his system middle of the campaign and part of the deterioration of the performance is due to the pragmatism of him having a double pivot of Jedinak/Milligan (essentially two defensive players) and benching the Asian Cup best player Luongo resulting in Australia dominating possession but lacking cutting edge. However, the fact that this narrative persisted represents Ange’s strength in creating a narrative and myth greater than himself. Ange has explicitly stated that it is not enough to win as everyone wants to win. That special team have to play for something bigger than just winning.

So, he creates a narrative that the team is not just aiming to win but to revolutionise the way Australia play football and that one day Australia can not just beat the best team in the world but outplay them. This inspires the fans to accept this narrative and create a myth and legend out of Ange as he is not just a manager but a person who represents the "something bigger” principles which at times can obscure the truth and cover up his flaws. This helps inspire the team but helps relieve pressure and protects himself as well.

 

So, what now for the true believers of football in Australia now that Ange is gone and there is some pessimism regarding professional football in Australia due to the struggle of the A-League and that his dream seems so distant. Ange Postecoglou may have failed to 100% complete his dream, but if he succeeds in the EPL and becomes one of the greatest managers in the world, perhaps this will inspire future Australian coaches to complete his dream. This is why Ange Postecoglou isn't just a manager for Australian football fans but a myth and legend and why Australian football fans will follow him wherever he goes.

Thoughts on seeing Sparks Live

 

Some thoughts and reflections on Spark’s gig at the Sydney Opera House on 31/10/2023 and their career in general.

https://www.setlist.fm/.../concert-hall-sydney-opera...

- While The Beatles and Paul McCartney may have been my pick of the greatest band and songwriter of all time. Sparks and Ron Mael is my pick for my favourite band and songwriter of all time and the band I am most fanatical about. I am one of many Beatles fans out there however Sparks seems like an exclusive cult that very few people know about. Sparks have 26 albums and I like at least 24 of them and that new releases I will be excited to hear.

- Sparks is one of the groups that I always wanted to see live but was somewhat pessimistic about whether I would ever get the opportunity to see them live and that the only possibility to achieve this wish is to travel overseas to watch them perform live. They may exist as a cult band in the UK due to a few hits from Kimono My House and No. 1 In Heaven. They have some cult presence in the United States due to their appearance on Saturday Night Live and their duet with Jane Wiedlin. However, most of their albums and singles don’t even chart here in Australia. Their biggest hit “This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us" was a number 2 hit single in the UK but only charted 69 here and would be an obscure song here. Essentially Sparks presence in Australia is essentially “When I’m With You” which surprisingly charted 17 and noted Russell Mael's reference during the gig that this was a hit here and the rest of the career is obscurity. Sparks is a band that the only people who know they exist are on the internet. There is one person I met in real life who recognised them, but this was a British migrant who heard their songs when growing up in England. I don’t think anyone growing up in Australia would have heard of them and I can’t imagine there is a much business case for them to tour Australia until very recently. I suspect the Spark’s Brother documentary and Annette may have changed things allowing them to tour here. So, watching Sparks live is probably the most exciting I have ever been anticipating a concert even more than Paul McCartney.

- I speculate that the venue at Sydney Opera House is one of the main reasons why Sparks even toured Australia. Russell Mael came here as a tourist and marvelled at the venue. Mentioned that Mael’s brother then dreamt about playing at the venue. It was repeated throughout the concert the sense of awe and disbelief of playing inside such a famed venue and couldn’t resist an opportunity to come here. This brought me back to “How Do I Get to Carnegie Hall?” despite all the time they “practice, man, practice” success eluded them as represented by "All of this I did for you, Still, there is no sign of you". The protagonist of that song (and Sparks ) was unsuccessful in playing at Carnegie Hall, Sparks was unsuccessful in reaching fame and stardom however their “practice, man, practice” got them to reach the Sydney Opera House and I sense that this was very much meaningful achievement and vindication of them persisting in their music career despite their struggles. They were just as (or even more) excited to perform there as I was in watching them. I guess as a local Australian, I never thought of the Sydney Opera House as anything special and took it for granted.

- Setlist is quite surprising in what they didn’t play. Live favourites that were present in numerous bootlegs and official releases were not performed on this tour. There was no “Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth”, “Amateur Hour, “Suburban Homeboy”, “The Rhythm Thief”, “Dick Around, “At Home, At Work, At Play”. There was nothing from “Indiscreet” and surprisingly less emphasis on their 70’s period. They play a maximum of 1 song per album outside their new album in which they are touring “This Girl Is Crying In Her Latte” with 6 songs and surprisingly “Music That You Can Dance To” with two songs. I think they took the opportunity this tour to play songs that they hadn’t played much from earlier tours. “The Toughest Girl In Town” from Interior Design is a pretty deep cut for them to revive.

- Perhaps it was bad timing the moment that Sparks toured Australia. It was touring one of the 2 albums in their career that I don’t quite get yet. What I like about 00’s era Sparks is that there is superficial repetition that gives the song a hypnotic feel but combined with large-scale variations in arrangement and dynamics that give the song a dramatic arc with an introduction, climax and resolution. In the more recent Sparks album, I do feel there was repetition but although there can be subtle arrangement variation, not to the same degree as the 00’s albums which makes the song somewhat monotonous in feel and there isn’t the same degree of melodicism of the 70’s work to compensate. However, I significantly enjoyed the performances in the live setting compared to the studio release. They pick the better songs in the album to perform live and one of the benefits of hearing any modern album from any band live is that you can hear the song perform without modern mastering practices of loudness wars and removing dynamic range from music (noted judging from the dynamic range database their latest album had the least dynamic range of their career). Hearing it live without the compression mastering, these ‘subtle arrangement” change throughout the songs sounds a hell of a lot more dramatic in the live context compared to the studio version. It was significantly more interesting to listen to and I surprisingly enjoyed the performances of songs from the album that I didn’t care much for before the concert.

- This is probably one of the best concerts I have attended in terms of performance quality (up there with Radiohead and Crowded House). Paul McCartney’s concert evoked a feeling of “Wow, isn’t it great that this 81-year-old legend is still performing live”. Yeah, Paul McCartney's voice sounds aged but it’s cruel to judge him from that. Sparks evoked feelings of “wow, these men in the 70’s are performing with the same level as their 20 yo self”. The Mael brothers look 20 years younger than their actual age. Russell Mael (age 75) is singing somewhat complex vocal melodies line with a heavy falsetto and hitting every note with pitch-perfect accuracy while being energetic on stage and jumping around. Russell Mael can still hit the “I Ain’t going to leave” outro of “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us”. I think if you listen to a bootleg recording from 2023 and compare it to the 1970s bootleg, there isn’t particularly any significant deterioration in vocal performance.

- Reading the biography of Sparks it seems like the Mael brothers were people who liked both rock music and electronic/dance music but were detached observers of the culture of what the music represents (which is part of the reason why I like them so much as it is similar to my outlook). This often is credited as an attitude that allowed them to make satirical music about both rock and dance music. However, what’s often overlooked is that this also allowed them to avoid the pitfalls of the decadence of what each genre represents and perhaps explain their career longevity. From what I gather, in the 70’s the rest of the band goes out and parties and gets drunk after a gig while the Mael Brothers go home and rest. Both the Mael brothers have reputations as health and gym freaks who treat their bodies like the temple. Most rock and rollers peaked in their 20’s but then when you watch them perform in their later years you will see their vocals affected by aging and likely the effects of substance misuse. Even the milder rock and roll star like Paul McCartney likely had his voice aged by chronic cannabis use.

- One of the highlights was the performance of the title track “Music That You Can Dance To” which I was excited to hear encapsulate this copying the form but maintaining the outside observer perspective described earlier. It can be enjoyed as a straight-ahead dance song and I note that this was the moment in the gig that caused the entire audience to stand up from previously sitting down on the seat and they remained standing and dancing for the rest of the concert (including myself). However, I have always interpreted that song as an annoying person aggressively trying to aggravate someone who is not interested in dancing and prefers to listen to symphony or jazz to get up and dance causing them to scream out in agony (as per the female backing vocalist)

- Some nit-pick. I’m not entirely impressed with them playing Shopping Mall Of Love. I get that it has a functional role in this concert that this is one of the few songs where Ron Mael is the “lead vocalist” and hence gives him a moment to shine and for the crowd to cheer for him but it is one of the weakest songs of their career. It would have been ok if they reworked the song as I think there is potential in the chorus to be a sort of “The Calm Before The Opera” style arrangement, however, spoken words over a minimal arrangement that doesn’t change throughout the song are lazy and there wasn’t any effort to fix the song. If you want Ron Mael a moment to shine just get him to do his famous dance more often or do the “Ron Speaks” version of Suburban Homeboy. I do also wish they performed the “heavenly” part 1 of The Number One Song In Heaven rather than skipping straight to part 2. That song is part of Spark’s detached observer of dance music and its culture but instead of satirical mocking, it states that genre like dance music/disco was capable of expressing transcendence and being a conduit of divine inspiration as any other “more serious” genres of music and Part 1 is a crucial part of that. It’s the contrast between the two parts that make the song great and Part 1 shouldn’t be reduced to a 30-second intro.

- The best song of the night is Beaver O’Lindy. The Mael/Mankey brothers era of the group remains my favourite era of their illustrious career. In that era they were at their peaks as a melodist and I think they were at Lennon/McCartney, the arrangement was interesting with this song as a multipart song with three different contrasting sections with different dynamics and it didn’t always rely on Ron Mael’s keyboard doubling the vocals which became typical of his career (noting that the bass is the most prominent instrument of the song)

Thoughts on seeing Paul McCartney Live

 Saw Paul McCartney probably the greatest songwriter of the rock era. It’s one of the bucket lists of artists I wanted to see in my lifetime and with the artist at his age, you’ll never know if there will be another opportunity to see him play live.
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/paul-mccartney/2023/allianz-stadium-sydney-australia-63a01a5b.html
Various thoughts of the gig
- Setlist is a fair mixture of The Beatles's career and his solo career (around 50:50) and gives a good cross-section of his career including his underrated 2000/2010 era.
- There was an extremely deep cut Beatles-related song that was played throughout the tour “In Spite of All the Danger” which was The Quarrymen demo only found in The Beatles Anthology Volume 1. It was quite ballsy of him taking the backing vocals and setting up a singalong moment with the audience (ala Hey Jude) considering most people in the audience wouldn’t have recognised the song.
- It was fun hearing him perform songs where the other Beatles take the lead vocals in the studio version. I knew that Paul McCartney liked to sing George Harrison’s Something Live due to its presence in his earlier live albums (It was present in both Back In The US and Good Evening New York City). It was a huge surprise hearing him sing “Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!” which was a track where Lennon took lead vocals in the studio album. 
- Looking at setlist.fm, he pretty much played the same setlist for the entirety of the Australian tour but surprisingly there was some change in the setlist likely due to him doing two concerts in Sydney to create some variation for people who attended both concerts. The presence of Queenie Eye, Coming Up and A Hard Day’s Night was a welcome surprise.
- “Here Today” was probably the best performance by Paul McCartney that night as there is added value of it being performed live at this age compared to just listening to a studio performance. This is because, for the majority of the gig, it was elderly men playing young people’s music. However, this tribute to John Lennon’s death is far more touching coming from an 82 yo man with an aged voice. It created an atmosphere of a person towards the end of his life reflecting on people who have passed away. His introductory speech talking about the male stoic culture that prevented him from ever expressing his true feelings when John was alive and he was able to express the emotions that come from the wisdom of age.
- My favourite moment is “Dance Tonight” from Memory Almost Full (Probably my favourite solo album) I suspect I was the most excited person in the stadium regarding him playing it
It- Great to see Lennon/McCartney duet with Lennon on the big screen during “I Got A Feeling”. It is noted that Peter Jackson who directed the Get Back documentary was present in the audience and was credited with this idea.
- There was a recognition from McCartney that the audience was predominantly there for The Beatles material. He stated that when The Beatle's songs were being played he saw phone lights and people recording and when his late career solo songs there was darkness producing a laugh from the audience. He then stated that he would still play his more recent song regardless leading to the performance of “Queenie Eye”
- The loud pyrotechnics in “Live And Let Die” with loud explosion/bang was well done and McCartney produced a feign heart attack
- I’m reminded of Lennon’s lyrics of “I seen religion from Jesus to Paul” during the performance of Hey Jude where it’s essentially become Paul McCartney’s hymn. Having the entire crowd singing the “na na na” section became almost a spiritual experience being there in person that can’t be reflected in any bootleg or live recordings.