In 1968 I was an 11-year-old who was obsessed with the Monkees. Their concert at the Sydney Stadium (usually a boxing ring) was the first rock concert I ever attended. Not that I heard much music that day, rock or otherwise … or was it night? My memory does not serve me. I know I went with my mother and younger sister. I can still see my poor mum, crouched on that bench, her hands over her ears. Like every other pre-pubescent girl lucky enough to have a ticket, no sooner did the pre-Fab Four hit their first note, than we were all standing on our wooden bench seats, screaming our lungs out. It was awesome – though we would have said “unreal” back then.

Peter Tork, bassist for the Monkees, dies aged 77 Read more

Roll forward 51 years and – now a grandmother – I’m sitting sedately in my allotted seat in the concert hall of the Sydney Opera House listening to the Monkees for a second time, and I can hear every note and every word. And it’s just as awesome but in a totally different way.

Of the original line-up, only Mike Nesmith and Micky Dolenz are still around. Nesmith recently revealed on Facebook that these are the likely to be the last shows he will play as part of the Monkees so it’s bittersweet to have been there at the beginning and now at the end.

The pair and their very tight backing band play all the great songs. They start with Last Train to Clarksville and end with I’m a Believer, but this time round, instead of screaming, the ageing crowd bellows the words back at them. This is moving and great fun, particularly during a poignant crowd moment in Daydream Believer as Nesmith (referred to as “Nes” by Dolenz throughout) exhorts us to sing louder because ‘“he can’t hear you”. Then he says the word many of us have been aching to hear all night: “Davy”. It is my one complaint about the concert. Peter Tork gets a good tribute when they play For Pete’s Sake, but Davy Jones hardly gets a mention. I don’t care if the remaining Monkees liked him or not, we liked him – I was obsessed with him when I was 11 – and we want more about him.

That carp aside, the two survivors are clearly having as much fun as the audience. Particularly Nesmith, who looks every inch his age (76) but moves with agility and grace and embraces the audience from the moment he steps on to the stage. He frequently throws his arms wide and twinkles jovially at us all. Refreshingly he doesn’t take himself seriously for a moment. This was, perhaps, the Monkees’ great strength, back in the day. They weren’t pretentious or self-important. How could they be, given the way they were formed? The one time they tried to be self-consciously cool and arty, with the movie Head (written by Jack Nicholson, according to Nesmith), they failed spectacularly. Although when they play The Porpoise Song (I am Walrus anyone?), it’s much better than I remember.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Monkees at their press conference at the Brighton Hotel in Sydney on 16 September 1968. Photograph: The Sydney Morning Herald/Fairfax Media via Getty Images

For Nesmith, the beanie has gone (thank god), along with the hair, yet he remains as goofy as ever but without the spiky awkwardness that could tip into abrasiveness in his youth. And the list of songs they play that he wrote speaks of his considerable and under-rated talent. I’d forgotten how catchy and hilarious his solo hit Rio is, for example, and leave humming it.

Dolenz takes longer to warm up, although his voice is also in fine fettle. He does not move about the stage as easily as his fellow Monkee but it’s his outfit that holds the audience at more of a distance. He wears tinted glasses and a large low-slung black hat as if in disguise. Perhaps that’s why the night felt like it belonged to Mike more than Micky.

The Monkees: Christmas Party review – festive mishmash best when guests chime in Read more

Listening to their extensive playlist, it strikes me that Dolenz and Nesmith are as complementary in their way as Lennon and McCartney and Jagger and Richards. Nesmith is all classic American country rock, Dolenz more of a rock-and-roller. Indeed, Dolenz’s performance of his Britpop song Randy Scouse Git was a stand-out moment in an evening full of them.

The concert knows exactly what it is: an evening of nostalgia and also gentle triumph. “Look,” Nesmith and Dolenz seemed to be saying, “here we are still doing what we do and here you all are still enjoying it.” There is something to be said for that. It’s made even more intimate by the fact that Dolenz’s younger sister Coco does back-up vocals and percussion and Nesmith’s talented son Christian plays lead guitar.

Perhaps when you are the age of the surviving Monkees and most of their audience, that’s what matters most. Good memories, family, the fact you are still around and still useful, that you’ve survived the naysayers and that you still know how to have a rollicking good time.

Oh, and that you have absolutely nothing left to prove.