Rhiannon Morley:
Name: Rhiannon MorleyThe first time I saw Tina perform live was on October 3rd, 1995. My sister and I were both given tickets to Tina’s “You Asked For It” tour for our birthday. (Definitely the BEST present I have ever been given J) Although this was not always advertised, Tina’s concert in Ararat, my home-town, was her very first show for the “You Asked For It” tour.
The Town Hall was very quickly booked out, and Tina’s show was BRILLIANT. The concert was two days after Tina’s amazing win at the ARIA’s, and also not long after the AFL Grand Final performance and her appearance on the Footy Show, singing “Wasn’t It Good” in honour of Ted Whitten. So, I got to watch these amazing performances realising that I would be watching her LIVE in a day’s time!!!! I couldn’t wait! After CDB had finished their set, finally Tina came to the stage. She opened with the powerful “Heaven Help My Heart”, leaving me awe-struck for the rest of the night. One of my favourites from the night was Tina’s incredible rendition of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready”. Tina has a great sense of humour, and when a guy in the audience congratulated her on her ARIA win she joked that she could use them for door-stops. She concluded the show with an energetic performance of Standing Up. I was completely blown away by Tina’s amazingly powerful voice. When the show had finished, I never wanted to leave, and got no sleep that night as I could not stop thinking about how amazing Tina was. From then on, I became the absolutely HUGE fan of Tina that I am today. I began collecting anything and everything I could on Tina, along the way meeting some great friends who are also big fans of Tina. In Deep live… The second time I got to see Tina live in concert was on December 12th, 1997 for her ‘In Deep Live’ concert at Melbourne Park. I was so excited…I felt like it had been forever that I’d been waiting to see Tina perform again. Watching Tina live is the BEST!!! As the band played on and on, we were left in longing suspense as we eagerly awaited Tina’s arrival. Finally, the curtains opened, and Tina walked onto the stage singing an amazingly powerful performance of her statement song, “In Command”. During “Sorrento Moon” Tina sang a verse in Spanish, which truly displayed her awesome talent, and during “That’s The Way A Woman Feels” the audience sang two choruses with Tina. In the middle of the concert Tina walked out the back of the stage, and we didn’t know where she was until she re-appeared on a smaller stage on the other side of the room. Tina was then joined by Jeff Jacobs, Crystal Taliefaro, PJ Becker and Rod Davies. Tina’s absolutely beautiful performance of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, dedicated to Michael Hutchence, who died on the day of Tina’s first concert, was brilliant. Tina sat down at the piano, and began to play “Burn”, but was just tricking everyone. She then got Jeff Jacobs to play as she sang the beautiful ballad, “Not For Sale”. The breathtaking “Wasn’t It Good” followed, and Tina then walked through the crowd to the exit on the other side of the room, on the way shaking hands and meeting fans, which truly shows how down-to-earth and legendary she is ... The band kept playing as Tina quickly got changed and returned to the main stage. “Message” and “Greatest Gift” are two huge favourites of mine, and I absolutely love seeing Tina perform them live…with the added soulful endings, they were definite stand outs of the night. Work experience at RCM… For many years it has been my dream to work on the business side of the Music Industry, so for my Year 11 work experience, I knew exactly where I wanted to work. Knowing the legendary Susan through the fanclub, I asked her if it would be ok for me to work at RCM. She said that it would be great, and I was SO excited. Everyone in my year who was working in Melbourne stayed at a Youth Hostel called ‘Minimbah’, in Armadale. We had an unreal time. It was the BEST week of my life! Jobs that I got to do at RCM included getting the mail from the post office, sorting business letters from fan club letters and checking what each person was after, writing out the lyrics to “You’re No Good” for Tina to sing overseas, writing out the credits for the International release of In Deep, typing fan club replies on the computer, banking and more. It was ALWAYS my dream to meet Tina, but I never, ever thought I would be lucky enough…yet, on my first day at work, I finally got to meet her. I couldn’t believe it! The time that I was at RCM was the first time in ages that Tina had been home… I was busy typing on the computer when Bernadette called my name. I turned around, and Tina was standing right in front of me. I was so blown away; I forgot everything I wanted to say to her and was completely stuck for words. She also came into the office on the Wednesday, where I got to talk to her again, and she helped me with the lyrics to “You’re No Good” as did the amazingly talented Pierre Baroni. Tina was very busy as this was a few days before she traveled to Egypt for the making of the beautiful “If I Was A River” clip. It was a privilege meeting everyone there. They were all so nice. I also got to meet the guys in Vertigo, who were really nice. After I left, I knew that I definitely did want to work in the music industry. I plan on working on the business side of the industry, and would love to do many jobs in this area including writing concert and CD reviews, music management, helping up-and-coming artists, music supervising for television shows, and much more.