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Kate Ceberano: still brave, still burning

Music / December 4, 2025 / 4 minutes of reading

When Kate Ceberano played the Australian Made tour with her band I’m Talking in the summer of 1986-87, she was already a veteran of the Australian music industry at barely 20 years old.

The concert series, which saw Ceberano and her band rubbing shoulders with INXS, Jimmy Barnes, Divinyls, Mental as Anything, Models and the Triffids, came at a time when most of the headline acts were making inroads overseas.

“I remember being very shy around all of the other acts, and I overcompensated by trying to pretend that I was a lot more cool with it than I actually was,” Ceberano remembers.

She describes being overwhelmed, starstruck, and hints at the sort of behind-the-scenes shenanigans to be expected of 20-year-old rock stars. “A lot went down on that tour. It was a blessing that we didn’t have social media back in those days!”

But Ceberano was far from out of her depth. She’d joined I’m Talking when she was 16, and had already been in several bands before then, where her honeyed vocals and charisma made her an instant star.

And I’m Talking were huge. Formed in 1983, with Ceberano sharing the front of the stage with co-singer Zan Abeyratne, the band had hits with their debut single Trust Me, Do You Wanna Be and Holy Word, before disbanding after the Australian Made tour wound up.…

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“He was like a god”: Australian musicians mourn David Bowie

As the Australian music community absorbs the news of the passing of David Bowie at the age of 69 yesterday, musicians and songwriters – especially those who came of age in the 1970s and early ’80s, when the songwriter was at his peak – have spoken of his profound influence on both their work and their lives.

Melbourne soloist Jen Cloher expressed commonly recurring theme of disbelief. “I turned to Courtney [Barnett, Cloher’s partner] last night and said, you just never thought that David Bowie would die. Which is ludicrous, but that’s how it feels … He was like a god.”

Cloher also spoke of Bowie’s indirect impact on her as a queer artist. “The ’70s in so many ways were far more dangerous, far more edgy, far more open to a broad idea of gender than today. It would have rubbed off. You grow up around that, and it infiltrates in ways that you don’t even think about at the time.”

Robert Forster, co-founder of the Go-Betweens, has often written and spoken of his admiration for Bowie. “Bowie was obviously the most important white musical figure of the ’70s. He bestrode the decade like no one else.

“Bowie was beautiful, which was confrontational for a 14, 15-year-old boy.…