‘She just conjured electricity': Celebrating Divinyls legend Chrissy Amphlett
Chrissy Amphlett was unlike anything Australians had seen when she burst on the stage in 1980 as lead singer of Divinyls. Without her it's hard to imagine Amy Taylor from Amyl & the Sniffers, or Amphlett's fellow Geelong-born rocker Adalita.
A new show opening next week called Amplified showcases the work of the late artist – Amphlett died from breast cancer in 2013, aged just 53 – as well as her extraordinary impact and legacy.
Making the work has been a wonderful process, says Sheridan Harbridge, who stars in the show, and co-created it with acclaimed director Sarah Goodes and musical director Glenn Moorhouse (Hedwig and the Angry Inch).
Trawling through YouTube and watching old performances by the Divinyls and Amphlett solo, Harbridge says there are hundreds of comments from people writing things such as 'I saw them at the Crystal Ballroom and it was the most amazing thing I've ever seen'.
'And then women saying, 'I'd never seen a woman act like that and I didn't know you could',' the actor-singer-writer says, adding that 'equally for men, they were watching something quite electric'.
'I spoke to someone who worked with her and they said, 'she just conjured electricity'.'
Raised in a Pentecostal Christian family in Gippsland, Harbridge wasn't allowed to watch shows like The Simpsons and The Golden Girls, but thankfully her mum didn't know what Rage was, so that was where she first came across Amphlett.
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