Project Description

YOU AM I and HOODOO GURUS

Canberra Theatre (21 July 2017)

Live Review

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You Am I

You Am I @ Towradgi Beach Hotel /// Photo – John de Haan

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Tim Rogers is a rock god. He is a towering figure in Australian music and has been for decades. His presence is enormous and there is yet to be a stage or a room which he himself did not fill to capacity by the simple fact of being in it. Whether playing to a hundred people or ten thousand you can’t help but get the sense that in his head he is playing to the entire Woodstock Festival night after night. He appears dressed in black on black, shirt open to the waist, flares as wide as church bells and 8 inch gold platform heels he claims to have stolen from a prostitute he accidentally headbutted backstage.

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Hoodoo Gurus

Hoodoo Gurus @ Towradgi Beach Hotel /// Photo – John de Haan

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It is a tribute to the rest of the band’s fluidity that they can keep up, both physically and sonically.  The performance might be loose and Rogers might be completely unpredictable but the songs are flawless and the musicianship of the band is on point from first song to last. There is a kind of decadence in what You Am I do, a sense that the music and the band are still somehow dangerous, that they embody the rock n roll spirit like some anachronism from the 70s. The tunes themselves are punk as fuck; blistering, noisy, crowdburning musical razorblades. As they finished their set one question burns… “How the hell is any band supposed to follow that?”

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You Am I

You Am I @ Towradgi Beach Hotel /// Photo – John de Haan

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About half an hour later the question gets its answer. Dave Faulkner, who is about 90 days from his 60th birthday, crushes. The differences in approach between the two frontmen couldn’t be more pronounced. Rogers is the loose cannon; Faulkner is the craftsman who approaches the job of performing the Hoodoo Gurus’ considerable back catalogue with impeccable precision. As a band they are impossibly tight. Most noticeable is the timelessness of the songs. Some of them were recorded a year or two ago, some of them two or three decades ago, but not a single one sounds dated or nostalgic. It’s easy to forget how well written they are, as if the Hoodoo Gurus as a band have some hidden formula for churning out instantly likeable records.

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Hoodoo Gurus

Hoodoo Gurus @ Towradgi Beach Hotel /// Photo – John de Haan

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Faulkner may not be as flamboyant as Rogers, but he is nonetheless a brilliant showman in complete mastery of the stage and his audience. At one point a young woman takes to the stage and they share the kind of moment it might have been tempting to think were a thing of the past for the Hoodo0s.

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You Am I

You Am I @ Towradgi Beach Hotel /// Photo – John de Haan

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The combination of the two acts is an unusual choice for a venue like the Canberra Theatre. Its generally a seating room only affair. Generally. On this night however a hundred or so people crowd the tiny area between the stage and the front row of seating, defying the staid feeling that normally pervades the capital’s most respectable venue.  Special mention should go to the opening act, Justin Frew’s Loose Intentions. They’re a dark, swampy, sinister country blues combo, a little like the Kill Devil Hills. The crowd was still filtering in for most of their set, but their sound is mean as hell. Darren Legg on double bass in particular is a fiend, throwing that thing around and wrestling the sounds from its depths.  Nobody invented anything new tonight.  Instead, they showed up and played honest, solid rock n roll. They played it hard and they played it well. What else is there?

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Justin Frew & The Loose Intentions

Justin Frew & The Loose Intentions @ Towradgi Beach Hotel /// Photo – John de Haan

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Check out John de Haan’s gallery of the show at the Towradgi Beach Hotel HERE

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AMNPLIFY – DB