Untitled Document

THE VINES
Sunday Telegraph - 2004

Goodness, it looks as though I may have to re-assess my stance on Craig Nicholls from The Vines. Rather than buying a house in Byron like every other self-respecting Australian rock star, marrying an Imbruglia sister and then fading into a comfortable early 30s of greatest-hits packages and ring-tone royalties, Craig has decided to go authentically insane!

Well, sort of.

In case you didn’t hear, last week Craig threw a tantrum at the Annandale Hotel during which he allegedly “insulted” the audience, threw stuff and kicked a photographer. It wasn't Craig's first public fracas, but this time it seems - at least according to several news outlets and MMM radio, which is threatening to ban The Vines - he's gone “too far”.

Two particulars of this story piqued my interest. Firstly, the fact that a corporate radio station hitherto best known for its expertise in “crazy calls” and handing out free Cokes from the back of a “Black Thunder” has decided to enter public moral debates normally reserved for our ethicists, writers of letters to the editor and clergy. Secondly, the image of Craig attacking the crowd at the Annandale; many is the night I have had to restrain myself from doing the same.

Yet the big question still remains: on what basis has Craig Nicholls gone “too far”?

As I see it, the only difference between a rock star and a rock star who has gone “too far” is a hit album. After all, Bjork kicked the crap out of an MTV reporter at Bangkok airport and she's hailed as an eccentric genius: partly because everyone nurses the secret desire to kick the crap out an MTV reporter, but mostly because Bjork still shifts units. The Vines, on the other hand, face weakened sales of their second album and an almost universal critical caning.

Go too far while you still can, I say.

Nevertheless, this still leaves a nagging question: just what is up with Craig Nicholls? His capricious behaviour has been rationalised variously as the natural exhibitionism of an eccentric genius, a symptom of marijuana psychosis or, maybe (and this is just a guess), the calculated affectation of a mediocre talent.

Perhaps it might also due to the very nature of the New Rock “movement”, based as it is on false notions of what rock and roll is or, rather, was: witness the phony macho posturing of Jet or the fact that Craig likes The Kinks “because they fought on stage”. (Remember too that his father’s go-nowhere 60s band was called The Vynes and suddenly an Oedipal wild card comes into play.)

With such expectations upon him it is logical that New Rock's poster boy would behave in a manner conforming to the conventions of an imagined past, one constructed by our parents' generation. If this is true then the issue isn’t whether Nicholls went too far, but whether he has sacrificed his potential on the altar of somebody else's dream.

One part of me wants to feel sorry for Craig - a kid given the keys to the candy store and told to behave, a kid who's had sunshine illuminate areas of his body best left darkened, a kid who has probably fallen into the most fatal trap of fame: believing your own press. At 26, it's tempting to think 1.5 million albums is evidence of your genius. But, to put things in perspective, Icehouse sold 3.5 million copies of Man Of Colours - and I’m told they’re still big in Germany.

The less forgiving side of me longs to see Craig Nicholls disappear in a puff of smoke. His perceived arrogance wasn't the problem; arrogance is not a reprehensible failing, providing you have the skills to back it up. But to think you're an artist when you're merely an entertainer is an unforgivable vanity. The Vines are discovering the hardest lesson of showbiz: you're only as big as your last hit.