Fusion

Australia is a diverse country with its multiculturism oft described as a melting pot of differing perspectives, traditions and cultural practices. There was no greater example of this than Max Jackson’s performance at the Bribie Island Hotel back on 11 July 2026.

Fusion is often used to describe the combination of differing cuisines to create a fresh take on traditional recipes, with the aim that the fused product is greater than the sum of its parts. Max’s take on taking popular songs from mainstream music genres and making them a little more country is a critical success in achieving this goal and is on theme considering the place music has in feeding the soul.

The weekend of 11-12 July was a good temporal location for this to happen with the Abbey Medieval Festival also being held this weekend just off the Island. As such, Bribie found itself in a position of greater diversity than is perhaps normal around. The term “strange” is dependent on the pre-existing perspectives of the viewer and the context of which they consider to be “normal”. As such, eating breakfast on a Sunday morning on Welsby Parade only to see a group of four knights in colourful medieval costumes walk by could, by most, be considered strange.

Bribie Island can generally be considered as close to Pauline Hanson’s desired monoculture as anywhere in Australia. It has an average age in excess of 65, is predominantly Caucasian in heritage and skews quite heavily to the political right, with the non-geriatrics on the Island often capable of being described as bogan, with their lifted oversized yank tanks constantly on their way to plunder the natural resources of Island by destroying the fragile beach ecosystems with their beach driving and overfishing the surrounding passages and seas. It is where One Nation find their most fertile breading grounds, and where the ongoing conservative, institutionalised racism runs rampant. I don’t think anyone was surprised to see that Bribie Island was one of the highest “no” votes in the last referendum.

Into this melting pot of diversity and inclusivity stepped Max, her band and opener Josie. This was the final leg of the Dangerous in Denim tour, with the latest shows including Brisbane on Thursday, Caloundra on Friday and then Bribie on Saturday. It is a clear indication of the strength of country music in the region and Max’s individual popularity that she was capable of having three consecutive shows in geographically close locations and still have strong crowds at each.

This was my time visiting the Bribie Island Hotel, even if it could be considered my local watering hole. It is a big venue, if not particularly suited to hosting successful live music events. The show was held in a partitioned portion of the bistro. The show was mostly seated with a scattering of normal dining tables and a dancefloor kind of space left in front of the stage. It is unclear what the potential capacity of the show could have been, however there was around 50-60 people in the crowd.

The venue really has an RSL vibe to it, and is perhaps more suited to hosting events where its live music on a Sunday afternoon that people are kind of listening to whilst they have fun with their friends or eat with their families. It really cannot compare with specially designed live music venues like what you find in Fortitude Valley, the Sunshine Coast or even just directly across the passage at the Sandstone Point Hotel.

The crowd that attends country music gigs can often be interesting. I was fortunate for this gig that a couple of friends, George and Andrew, from Wauchope, NSW were joining me. To be honest, if it wasn’t for Andrew’s urging I would be unlikely to have attended a country music concert let along two within the space of a month. In that respect, Andrew can be seen to be a very poor influence on me. He has curated a change in my music tastes away from what is normally described as teenaged white girl music – that being indie pop with a touch of soft rock to be a more inclusive twang of country music. He has even convinced me to get tickets to both Strummingbird and next year’s Country Music Festival in Tamworth. Fuck knows hat my life is coming to.

Anyway, George and Andrew could be considered farmers and as such I felt right at home sitting at a country music gig. As is the consistent theme, they had suffered through the bullshit that was the Bruce Highway that day, which was fucked because it was both a normal Saturday and the Abbey festival was on.

I’ve found that themes to do with roads, trucks and associated bullshit that forms a large part of rural Australia’s cultural are prevalent within the country music scene. Its surprising that even with common underpinnings, the cultural differences between one country town and the next, just up the road, can be so different.

This juxtaposition of the culture clashes was highlighted by Josie as the opening act for the concert. Josie has obviously been greatly influenced by her childhood spending school holidays stuck in a truck with her father making trips to and from Alice Springs. Kids are often cruel when it comes to understanding a person with an unusual background or slightly different home life. These formative experiences have shaped Josie’s linguistic lyrical style, even if her songs seem somewhat confused about how many wheels are on various types of heavy vehicles.

This point, in particular, generated a bunch of contention between Andrew, George and I. One of Josie’s most well known songs makes reference to the American term 18 wheeler and some trucks can have up to 130 wheels. If you want to check how many wheels are potentially on a truck, you just need to remember the simple equation of (n-2)/4, where n equals the total number of wheels. If the equation gives a whole number then it is possible that that is the total number of wheels on a truck. For instance, you can have a 70 wheeler truck, but you are highly unlikely to find a 72 wheeler.

On the topic of wheels, George had a harebrained idea that we should count spare wheels as “wheels” on a truck. People should take this as a good indication to not be like George.

In any event, Josie gave an excellent performance, exploring the themes of trucking life and how that necessarily nomadic lifestyle creates differing viewpoints and cultural learnings than a child who is purely brought up in a single town.

Josie had a fun stage presence with an easy interactive presence with the crowd.

Max was a revelation. Her shtick is that she takes non country songs and makes them a little more country, and, holy shit, is she good at it. Her set was filled with classic covers which she put her own country spin on. That’s not to say that she didn’t have any good original songs, Max is clearly a talented song writer, but her true talent rests in performing.

Max is a polished performer and has that talent that all the best performers have to capture the crowd and immediately get them caught in the tune rather than thinking about the outside world. I call this the Piano Man effect, named after Billy Joel’s song where the piano man lets the crowd forget about life for a while.

The set was interspersed with some good comedic utterings and geography lessons, such as when George discovered that Cairns is actually further north than Townsville.

I think that Max was a perfect gateway drug for our metropolitan cousins who remain on the fence about country music. She takes the songs that they are most familiar with and shows how they can be improved through the introduction of country twists, kind of like how mochas are a gateway into drinking coffee.

Some of the highlights of her set were her covers of Summer of 69 and Dancing Queen which have gone viral online after being reposted by Bjorn himself.

Ultimately, the night was an excellent example of how merging and fusing differing cultures and lived experiences together can be beneficial. A lesson that people in Australia, such as anyone who insists on voting for Pauline and her party are sorely in need of learning a little more about.  

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