The Chills, The Recital Centre 18th February 2023

History is littered with flawed geniuses possessing inexplicable gifts in all fields of endeavour.

I was lucky enough to witness the freaky skills of Gary Ablett Snr and finally when I got to see my tennis hero John McEnroe, he was thrown off Rod Laver Arena for dropping the ‘F Bomb’.

The arts are littered with tragic figures. Van Gogh didn’t sell a painting till after he died and music has had a plethora of them from Hendrix to Brian Wilson through to Nick Drake and Kurt Cobain.

Dunedin’s Martin Phillipps certainly fits the mould of the tortured genius and after a six year hiatus he has finally made it to Australia with his legendary band The Chills.

Formed in 1980, The Chills were the darlings of a post punk revolution that came out of Dunedin, a stunning university city on New Zealand’s South Island.

Their first major success was the 1982 single Pink Frost. It’s a tad grim in terms of narrative but encompasses what The Triffid’s Wide Open Road does for me as a native West Aussie. 

Pink Frost evokes those images of New Zealand’s South Island, green, rugged, freezing, foggy and windswept.

At the concert a bloke yelled out, “One of the greatest songs ever written!”. Then a gentle voice from the back stalls said, “So are all your other ones.” Quite funny.

The history of The Chills is literally one of wasted opportunity. Upon the tragic death from leukemia of their first drummer Martyn Bull, Phillipps became somewhat obsessed with achieving greatness.

He took Bull’s death hard and wrote a NZ hit called I Love My Leather Jacket (an encore at the show) in honour of the late drummer who left his leather jacket to Phillipps.

It would be the start of an enormous creative but destructive period for The Chills. Phillipps has seen out thirty two musicians who have ventured into the band over the last forty years.

In his fantastic documentary from a couple of years ago, The Triumph and Tragedy of Martin Phillipps, he comes across as being on the spectrum. Firstly because of his impulsive collection of toys and artifacts which became an exhibition in 2018 at the Otago Museum.

Secondly his obsession with achieving perfection in his writing and music at the expense of everything else, and thirdly his complete lack of empathy. At one stage of the documentary in the 90’s, he states, “I’m not going to sacrifice the creative process for the sake of a bit of teamwork.”

This attitude would be his downfall and without rhyme or reason, band members were cast out flabbergasted and unappreciated.

As success overseas slowly diminished so did Phillipps’ health. Alcohol and heroin addiction took over for the best part of ten years and he contracted hepatitis C.

Thankfully he has recovered from all of these ills and with a consistent band he is now playing catch up in middle age.

The band were tight as a drum and Phillipps, it appears has learned something about gratitude and empathy. Band member Erica Scally notes in the documentary that Phillips now acknowledges the band after shows and we noticed he thanked the audience after every song they played.

In the documentary, Phillipps apologises to anyone he has hurt over the journey but oddly enough he has that look of “what did I do?” about him. It’s what makes him so frustrating and interesting at the same time.

He lives a modest existence in Dunedin but The Chills are constantly on tour worldwide. Here are a few more tracks if you are unfamiliar with the band.

Rain from 1984

Wet Blanket from 1988.

Probably their biggest commercial success, the joyous Heavenly Pop Hit from 1990.

Phillipps’s favourite song Submarine Bells from the album of the same name.