at The Street Theatre, ANU, Canberra.

(Live Review – 25 May 2017)

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Tim Rogers is a picture of rock n roll decadence. He is also a parody of it; a picture of rock n roll ridiculousness, if you will. Fortunately, Rogers is aware of this and conducts himself accordingly. On May 25, with two unfathomably talented sidekicks Rogers graced the stage of the Street Theatre at the ANU, resplendent in all his ridiculous, decadent glory.

Rogers is touring his latest record, An Actor Repairs (presumably a play on Stanislavsky’s An Actor Prepares) and the Street Theatre is the perfect venue for a record whose intimate feel signals the mining of deeper wells for Rogers than many other projects.

Joined onstage by violinist and singer Xani Kolac and vocalist and keyboardist Clio Renner, Rogers is charming and funny and self-deprecating. The songs are a mix of stuff from the new album and old favourites with a Randy Newman track thrown in as a tribute to someone unnamed, who most probably assumed to be Chris Cornell.

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At one point Rogers castigates himself for breaking the ‘never share a stage with someone more talented than you’ rule. It isn’t hard to see why. Both Renner and Kolac have a pretty fair tilt at stealing the show and to his credit, Rogers takes a step back and gives both their moment in the sun. Renner, in particular, on a cover of McCartney’s ‘For No One’ is luminous.

Rogers gushes a number of times about The Lowlands, the Canberra folk act supporting him for much of the tour, and reminisces about his time as a student of the ANU.

His voice, while not technically a perfect one, gives depth and colour to the characters from An Actor Repairs. The songs are well chosen and suit the tiny theatre perfectly. In some cases, though, Rogers seems too big for the room, such is his absurdity. This only serves to make him more ingratiating to the audience and by the end of the show the venue full of what seemed like already rusted on Rogers fans were even more taken by him.

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It’s a different and revealing experience to see someone like him, known for his bravado and machismo, forced by space to take a different approach. If you had walked into the room expecting the show to be all “You-Am-I-style-rock-n-roll-fuck-you”, you might have been disappointed.

Everyone else thought he nailed it.

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AMNPLIFY – DB