Description
Joel Smoker and the Red Dirt Band The Human Condition Concert
DVD review by Tony Smith 2026
TN2597 D – $10
TN180 Sep 26
This 2025 DVD records a concert at Bunbury by this established West Australian band.
Prior to the interval, songwriter and visual artist Joel Smoker introduced new songs about being human (Set 1).
After interval, the band performed songs from previous albums (Set 2).
Smoker, who plays guitar and sings, is backed by Red Dirt Band – Brendan Leggo (drums, percussion), John McNair (bass guitar) and Vincent Donnelly (mandolin, guitar, banjo, ukulele, vocals).
Smoker acknowledges the traditional owners of the country.
Otherwise there is very little patter between songs.
Set 1 songs are: ‘The Human Condition’ which is the best track and which sets the scene for the remaining songs.
‘I’m So Busy’ and ‘Calling on the Tom Tom’ are about the pressures added to life by modern communication devices and ‘Luddites of the World Unite’ says that you’ve nothing to lose but your emails with gurus to the left and the right – better ‘feel the breeze on your face’.
‘She’s Gone’ tells of a man living in the past, of the time before she left and of his desperation to find her, while ‘The Queen of the Desert’ is the tale of a young woman whose father was over protective.
‘Hannah and Daniel’ expresses perhaps the strongest sentiments on the album.
It asks what kind of world we are passing to the young and encourages them to ‘fear not … you can still dream your dreams and sing songs that are new’ … and hope.
People were enjoying themselves ‘Jivin’ at the Juju Bar’ but the place caught fire and everyone ran for their lives.
Whether they ride horses of flesh or steel ‘Lonesome Cowboy’ is a prayer for these wanderers, hoping they find their way home.
There are many types of girls who drive many sorts of cars but the ‘Girls in Four Wheel Drives’ really turn me on!
In ‘Mrs Curly Goes Shopping’, she wins the lottery, but when she goes to the city to buy a car, she encounters an anti-Aboriginal racist.
‘There Are Not Enough Hours in the Day’ is self-explanatory, especially when everyone wants you to do something right now, ‘Jennae’ is a free spirit, a girl who knocks on your door one day and stays, but you never know when she will move on and ‘Plain Old Me’ speculates about what he could be ‘if’ – if he was something else – but finally comes to realise that it is better to be himself.
Such is life.
The pace is becoming more hectic.
Technology, supposedly our servant, demands more of our time than ever before.
It places pressure on our relationships.
The title track makes an excellent opening.
The lyrics are sharp, the arrangement is appropriate and the singing clear and accessible.
While the writing of these songs is first-rate and Joel Smoker sings them well, there is not a great deal of variety in the arrangements.
They nearly all have a driving beat.
Heard separately, each song has great appeal.
The mandolin creates interest on a few songs and there a couple of slower numbers, notably those about women.
Set 2 songs are: ‘Friends’ which features some fine mandolin, ‘North of the Tropic of Capricorn’, ‘Lighthouse’ and ‘Smile’, both of which have admirable lyrics, ‘Tojo Dreaming’ and ‘Time Marches On’.
‘Spiritual Eyes’ adds variety as it is suggestive of a saltwater reggae beat.
The lyrics for ‘Ain’t No Time Like the Present’ are among the best on the DVD.
Other tracks are ‘When I Become a Country Music Star’, ‘Put on Your Dancing Shoes’ and ‘Bushdance’.
Fans will be familiar with these songs from Smoker’s four earlier albums.
It would be good to think Joel Smoker could become a country music star.
His songs are strongly, uncompromisingly Australian and too many country musicians play music derived from the USA.
He deals with a far greater range of emotions than the cliched cowboy styles with their broken hearts and bravado.
He sings in his own voice and does not try to imitate a Nashville accent.
There is an honest feeling and an innate integrity to all of Joel Smoker’s work.
Smoker’s website brings up ‘Red Dirt Arts’.
As well as describing the Kimberley region in song, Smoker is a photographer, ceramicist and an artist, and a fierce advocate for its people.
His works are steeped in the flavour of the WA outback.
His love for the region is so obvious and his skills so well developed that he is an excellent ambassador for the region.
Ed. Joel Smoker also has seven albums available for sale form the Trad&Now website, all of which may be heard from time to time on Trad&Now live!
On Saturday 26th April, 2025, Joel Smoker and The Red Dirt Band performed songs from his 2013 album, The Human Condition, at the Bunbury Regional Entertainment Centre on Saturday, April 26 2025. They also performed songs from Joel’s previous albums Out On Highway One (1989), Outback (1995), The Flesh and the Spirit (1999), Smile (2006) and his two EPs The Road to Nullagine (2005) and Heaven (2007). The concert was filmed by ProCopy and a DVD has now been produced from it
The Human Condition album and performance examined all aspects of, literally, the human condition via a court jester persona. It’s a unique process allowing a different freedom of expression.
“The theme of the album, and of the show, is about power,” Joel explains. “I’ll break it into how we use power and how some people abuse power. It will also be about speaking to power, and my stories will be around that theme.
“There’ll be stories from my life, experiential stories, and I hope people are engaged and maybe learn something from that. I was a primary school teacher, then I went back to art school and I was a high school art teacher. So I guess that’s built into my DNA, the motivation to teach, and if people want to come and listen, that’ll be great. And if they don’t want to listen, that’s cool. I can live with that!”
‘So what are we to do about the way we are
Eliminate our faults
Make everyone a star
Or do we hold a mirror up to our lives
And see what we want to see?
The mirror never lies’
Joel Smoker – The Human Condition
“I’m basically saying in regard to the human condition, ‘so this is what we’re like, and what are we going to do about it?’” states Joel.
From Calling On The Tom Tom, an examination of mobile phone dependency and I’m So Busy’s bluesy tale of 21st Century franticness to She’s Gone’s ‘boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl-what-does-boy-do-next?’ and Luddites Of the World Unite’s take on information technology, the evening will be an entertaining look at the foibles that make us human.
