You were thinking 'Nahh - give that a wide berth!' weren't you!? Well,
there seems that not a few fans of avant-garde cutting-edge new music would agree with you,
given the turn out for the Welcome to Campbelltown tribute at the Lansdowne
Hotel last evening. And never a more star-studded group of avant-garde cutting-edge new music purveyors were assembled
in these hallowed and sacred halls for what was essentially a cover-music night
with sprinklings of originals to suit the mood: The Brothers Murphy,
The Youth Group, Golden Rough, Tim Rogers on his pat (Was
this the launch of his solo career maybe?! Perhaps yet another reason for
kicking yourself for not having your butt bar-side!), Jodie (Clouds)
Phillis
on her pat, Spurs
for Jesus, and Jason Walker guesting on pedal steel
and the occasional telecaster
here and there through the night.
Stand-out performances included The Brothers with Where's
The Playground Suzie and Help Me Make It Through The Night, Youth Group with By The
Time I Get To Phoenix, and Spurs for Jesus
with their boot-scootinest, country-&-westernest and by far the loudest set
of the night. Their's was also the largest collection of tributes to The
Great Man, including Galveston, Country Boy, Try A Little
Kindness and the big winner Rhinestone Cowboy which I'm sure
everyone was hanging out for!
Tim took a song or two and a false-start to find
his voice and unfortunately for Jodie, Golden Rough had already
snavelled that song for which she is more recently best known Wicheta
Linesman (I preferred her version anyway - your mind instantly recalling
those close-harmonies for which Clouds
were famous). False starts also plagued a couple of the other artists but in
all it was an excellent night: one that would surely have been sorely missed by
those non-attendants!