It might have only been on the air for a total of four years in the late 90s, but nothing can ever compare to the unbridled chaos that was Recovery on the ABC. Now, almost 20 years after its final episode, the show’s host Dylan Lewis is exploring the madness behind the scenes of one of the best things to come out of the national broadcaster with a new documentary.
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Recovery: The Music & The Mayhem is set to air during Aus Music Month on November 23, in a return to the show’s original timeslot of 9am Saturday, for an hour-long dive into what went on behind the scenes of probably one of the most anarchic and chaotic talk shows on Aussie TV. A longer, louder, and uncut version is set to air at the more-adult time of 9pm November 27.
It was essentially like Triple J had stepped away from the mics and in front of the camera (and was actually succeeded by jtv after its cancellation). It was pure, unbridled chaos, and encapsulated the frenetic energy of the Aussie youth perfectly.
In the short time Recovery was on TV screens after the Rage graveyard shift ended, the show played host to an incredible amount of Aussie and international artists that it had no bloody right to have pulled. I’m talking acts like Blink 182, Green Day, Silverchair, Powderfinger, Natalie Imbruglia, MXPX – basically everyone that was on the old regional Warped Tour lineups.
Oh and Metallica that one time.
The doco will take everyone back to that brilliant three-hour block of content that I’m still not too sure how it managed to get broadcast nationally, considering Recovery felt more like the ratbag kids had nicked the keys to the ABC studios and not a properly laid-out and rehearsed television program.
Dylan will be rejoined by co-host Jane Gazzo and the show’s film critic Leigh Whannell (who went on to create the Saw film franchise), as well as some of the bands who stepped into the mayhem back in the late 90s like Bernard Fanning, Tim Rogers of You Am I, Killing Heidi, and members of Regurgitator, Magic Dirt, Spiderbait, Jebediah, Silverchair, and The Living End. And of course, it’s no look back at Recovery without checking in with The Enforcer to see what they’ve been up to for the last two decades.
He’ll also be playing a bunch of live sets that went down during the four years of Recovery’s glory, and I can only hope that it includes that one time that TISM brought in an aerobics instructor and led the whole audience and half the crew in a mass exercise class.
