There is something very special about watching a great singer watch another singer perform.
You must have seen the social media posts of rockstars and music legends watching a fellow star in full flight: the intimate understanding of their craft so clear in their expression; their attentive, quietly held focus on the choices their idol is making; the silently mouthed words (they know every one) and half-smiles at perfectly held notes and that tricky transition.
Watching them is like hearing the music twice: it's a secret masterclass, one caught unaware, in what a performer is really doing to move you with their music.
This week the superb British soul singer and disco revivalist Jessie Ware performed a short set in a small setting, and I was lucky enough to be there, sitting right near two of Australia's most significant singer-songwriters, Clare Bowditch and Kate Miller Heidke.
I was of course transported by the brilliant power, colour and floating beauty of Ware's voice (she deserves to be so much better known than she is right now, but I suspect that's all about to change) but I also couldn't keep my eyes off the singers watching the singer. What a gift.
Clare's joy at and capture by Ware's singing was beautiful to watch. I felt like I was receiving a wordless analysis of what it is to live a life of music on the stage: at some moments Clare seemed like she wanted to jump up there too; at others, she looked every bit the fan like me.
Being a fan never leaves you, and sometimes I think it's the highest calling of all – the forest that hears the tree fall.
The 'wrong' side of club-ready
I was there for a chat with Jessie Ware and also to gather a bunch of friends to hear music I knew they would love and to come together just us as the music fans we've been since our much younger days.
By the end of the night, the disco fire in our souls had been re-lit by Jessie's groove (I've shared this song with you before: just try staying seated while you listen to it) and we were only half-joking about wanting to go on dancing somewhere — but where? A bunch of mostly middle-aged women? Yeah, we had kids and husbands at home but why should that disqualify us from spinning around?
There's no dance scene for us anymore. Maybe it's ever been thus when you're on the wrong side of club-ready.
A friend points out to me the distinct difference between that kind of after-dark life in Australia compared to many countries in Europe, where women of all ages seem welcome into a dance-club culture that is strictly age-defined here. Just as G-strings are on every aged body on European beaches, so too their club culture is nowhere near as ageist as ours.
Instead, my friend's daughter who is 19, says she is now "too old" for so many venues that just want the barely out of high school crowd. When it comes to anyone who is over 35, it's just impossible.
But I don't know if we can blame it entirely on a youth-obsessed culture. The distinct joy in that evening for me was being in the company of dear friends: kind, smart, funny women who think deeply and laugh readily and as with almost every choice we've made in our lives, we need to accept that we are in charge of defining ourselves as women who still dance — or not.
The things we 'just don't do anymore'
I've written here before about making and keeping friendships as we get older, and the necessity for rejuvenating those connections. I think the same challenge applies to the way we define the boundaries of ourselves, too — do we need to have such a strict definition around the kind of person we are, and what we do and don't do?
It reminds me in an odd way of the best broadcasting advice I ever received from the radio guru Valerie Geller, who said try to do something you've never done before every week: it can't always be skydiving or swimming with whales, so just make it alighting at a different tram stop, or going into that gallery you always walk past.
One small, new thing to keep you alive to the possibilities around you. To keep learning that you can keep learning.
I suspect in a busy and sometimes even overwhelmed life, those little possibilities are the first to go: the things we don't need or that we "just don't do anymore" and after a while they become impossibilities, or a part of a lost self.
But I think I have the solution. While talking to music legend Kate Ceberano recently about her new book, she also lamented the lack of a club where women over 30 could go and dance, chat and not either be turned away at the door by the age police or hit on by blokes who probably shouldn't be there anyway. We decided we needed to start that club ourselves: an occasional pop-up disco of new and old stuff, decent booze and one hell of a dance floor.
We think we'll call it The Occasional Club: TOC, for short. Maybe we'll call it TicToc, just to annoy the kids we won't let in. Dress code: that 80s frock you just can't let go. Let me know if you want your name on the door.
This weekend: which Spotify type are you? The year ends "wrapped" as our music streamers call it, and I'm proud to tell you that for the first time in years I've reversed the "ruined by kids" outcome and my dance music just nudges ahead of gaming soundtracks. Score one for the disco tragic.
Have a safe and happy weekend and as we bring AusMusic Month to a close, I'll stretch the connection a little and celebrate with Jessie Ware joining our own queen in a joyful duet.
Anyone want to make a girl-gang to go see Kylie in Vegas? I'll sort the matching wigs.
Go well.