The lasting popularity of Under the Milky Way took The Church frontman Steve Kilbey by surprise.
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It’s one of his hits he’ll be playing at the Solid Gold Live show at the WIN Entertainment Centre in May next year.
It’s been covered by a range of artists including The Killers, Sia Furler, Miami Horror and Rick Springfield, featured in the film Donnie Darko and in 2008 was named the best Australian song of the last 20 years.
It’s a song loved by thousands, but Kilbey didn't have an inkling of what it would become when he wrote it.
“Sometimes the meanings others have adds into the meaning that you originally intended,” Kilbey says.
“Like a song like Under The Milky Way seems to mean a lot more to people than it ever meant when I wrote it.
“It was just something I wrote in four minutes, now it has all this history, all these covers and all these different things have happened to it.
“Like a snowball rolling downhill, it has assumed a lot more meaning than I ever intended it to have.”
The May 5 Solid Gold Live show features 12 acts from the 1980s, including Mondo Rock’s Ross Wilson, Dragon, Boom Crash Opera, 1927 and Choirboys frontman Mark Gable.
Like Kilbey, the acts will perform their hits in front of a house band. He says he doesn’t get much say in which songs he gets to play on the night.
“No, I only had four hits, so it’s pretty much a forgone conclusion,” he says.
“I’ve heard people arguing with the promoter before, trying to get to play new songs. I’ve never done it, I understand what I’m there for. I’m there to sing my three or four hits, I’m not there to lay any new music on them.
“That’s fine with me, that’s what the mission is.”
While all the hits – including The Unguarded Moment and Almost With You – get an airing on the Solid Gold Live show, Kilbey said there wasn’t a guarantee he’d play all of them at a Church gig.
At one of those shows, a hit or two might get jettisoned in favour of one of the “deeper cuts”.
But he doesn't have a drama with playing the old favourites; it’s not a chore for him even though he’d have played them so many times before.
“Unguarded Moment’s getting close to 40 years - 1981,” he says.
“The trick is to walk onstage and the enthusiasm of the crowd [and] the calibre of the house band just make it work.
“You don’t have to do very much, the enthusiasm is pretty contagious at those gigs.”