The Power of Wallace and Gromit

‘Are you going to Fringe?’ a friend asked.

I had just moved to Adelaide and never heard of Fringe before. I was from Sydney, a city known for its bustling night life and seedy streets. We did not have many festivals in Sydney, apart from the famous light show known as Vivid. But apparently, Adelaide was different.

‘You absolutely have to go to Fringe!’ my friend insisted. Okay, okay, I get it. I’ll go to Fringe.

The Fringe festival runs for about a month from mid-February to mid-March every year. During that month, Adelaide comes alive with music, comedy, art, poetry, circus acts, gardens lit up at night, and yes, even a theatre restaurant (Fawlty Towers, anyone?) to satiate the most die-hard art fanatic’s appetites.

So I decided to go.

The pick of the bunch was obviously a showing of Wallace and Gromit’s The Wrong Trousers, accompanied by a live brass band. The band was good. Very good. They were Grade A, which brass banders will know is the top grade you can achieve. I had a great time and found myself going to dinner afterwards with a bunch of brass enthusiasts.

Seated in a cute little Italian restaurant, the garlic so heavy it was almost visible in the air, I chatted to the lady next to me. ‘How did you enjoy the show?’

‘I loved it!’ She beamed at me. ‘The music was great.’

‘It was, wasn’t it? So, I take it you’re a Wallace and Gromit fan too?’

‘Oh, no, I can’t stand Wallace and Gromit.’

I paused while this paradoxical information sank in. ‘You went to see a Wallace and Gromit show…but you can’t stand them?’

‘That’s right.’ The smile was back. ‘I just love brass bands!’

My mind was still turning somersaults when my salt-and-pepper calamari arrived. I doused it in lemon and reflected as I ate on the power of music to unite us. I was sitting next to a woman in a restaurant who hated the same show I loved. We had completely different tastes, different preferences. But the music, oh, the music, overcame all that.

The music overcame all that.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know the world is currently turning somersaults. We live in tumultuous times. I am grateful that in our ever-changing, unpredictable world, music can be a constant for us. It has been for me.

Music is always there, waiting for us like a confidante, a haven, a cabin tucked deep into the woods of our hearts. We can turn and return to music any time. It is a universal language, able to transcend difference, opposites, and—dare I say it—even war.

May music visit us again, greeting us in the morning with symphonic resonance, healing us of heartaches, and singing us to sleep at night.

Have you encountered the power of music in your own life? How has it changed you, helped you, healed you? Has music ever been a transcendent force for you? Share your story. Let’s have a countercultural conversation.