Those not familiar with The
Shire’s most famous beachside suburb might find it difficult
locating this relatively new and far-from low-profile venue. The posters
plastered all over the place say that you can expect some big, not-so-big and
once-big acts to perform here in the coming weeks, so it is as big a surprise
to see a room with such a line-up supporting new artists as those on tonight’s
stage.
The early-comers squeezed
their way between that space closest to the bar for the first act, Adam
and Matt (I keep going to write Wil, because of the name Anderson and its proximity to the name Adam). Adam’s preference was
a 6-string acoustic while Matt’s was the Fender
Strat
and their muse was quite slow, almost melancholy. There was quite possibly some
deep-and-meaningful, thought provoking and/or inspiring lyrics throughout their
set but due to my proximity to the stage and the rather poor mixing effort we
missed most of them, except when the better songs came out at the end of the
set.
Stylistically, Adam
and Matt broached Country and Western (complete with inaudible harp),
Disco (difficult with only two guitars and sounding more Steve Miller than Disco) and Billy Bragg-styled folk (without
the accent or Socialist attitude). The aforementioned ‘best songs’ included:
their “imaginary theme song” as Adam explained “…before there was Shaft,
there was Sanchez”; Craig Drinks Beer (All Day Long) (the crowd
favourite “Bloke” long before Chris Franklin); and Lou Reed singing Pointer Sisters’ Neutron Dance
as the closer. Overall, there could/should be a band behind these two, filling
in the oh-so-obvious gaps, some more audience acknowledgement from Matt and a wee
bit more tempo: A good basis on which to build a little further. ««¾
You will find samples of Glen Colley’s
article-writing prowess in the Your Work
part of this site, but from earlier samples of his work (a punk venture at the Agincourt basement a few years back)
and exposure to his very quick sense of humour I had no idea what to expect
from this, the third gig for The Trophy Wives. Band press had
suggested Radiohead, Crowded
House,
Massive
Attack
and Portishead influences on the new style
so a happy up-beat night was not on the cards. And comments like “we’ve gone
all professional… with a tuner” hinted at a reprise of that underground gig.
But something in our many conversations always suggested something special;
something to look forward to; a band that would make something big. So when I
walked in on a sound-check, thinking I was fashionably late (as usual) all
those misgivings and pre-judgements made one wonder if this was a wasted trip.
What followed Adam and Matt’s
set was in fact the exact opposite of what those two and the sound-check
promised. Starting out with Elevator Musak, a alterna-jazzy tilt at Bert
Kaemfert/Burt
Bacharach, The Trophy Wives delivered quite the
polished and poppy set of 8. The band comprises Glen and Jane
trading front-person roles with the latter occasionally taking up
trumpet; Kate on keys, violin and backing vocals, Phil
out back and Luke down low. The first set had all the success and
stylings of Something
Urban and I actually found myself during some of the set at
Harbourside for that band’s CD
launch. Living Dead was the highlight of eight songs that
traversed Thunderclap
Newman Something In The Air, Radiohead No
Surprises, Paul
& Barry Ryan’s late 1968 epic Eloise, Tori
Amos and Louie
Louie with Hammond
organ to close. Kudos for the multi-instrumentality and
instrumentation, but a little more liveliness and/or imagination (was it
nerves?) in the rhythm section promise great things for this quintet!
The second set, however, was
not as bright and cheerful. The engineer (on his first night) got things
together by this time but musically it was more toward the slower end of the
aforementioned influences. The choreographer of this set did well: only Glen
and Phil took the stage for the first three songs, with styles that included
nouveau Brit Pop and Paul
Kelly/Dave Beniuk. Knot, the best song
of this set, appeared during this stage of the show. Luke joined
in for the moving Wrist Beneath Your Nails (an almost-Losing
My Religion) while Jane returned for the rock track Batten
Down The Hatches. Fumbling brought back the lower-tempo for the rest
of the set, except for No Van Gogh, the bright and happy Rembrandts Closer
To Free
closer with Kate back on vocals for that and the penultimate.
I didn’t leave this second set with the same feelings as from the first but there is still something in a band that retains its sizeable Tuesday audience the way they did tonight. With some more up-temp tunes (there’s the gauntlet Mr Colley!) and some more spit and polish around the edges, The Trophy Wives certainly have that certain-something that will take them that next step. Only a «««¼ performance tonight but there’s plenty more to come!