Project Description

MY FRIEND THE CHOCOLATE CAKE

Canberra Theatre Centre

(23 June 2018)

Reviewer – Benjamin Smith 

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My Friend the Chocolate Cake are something of an anomaly. Their brand of piano pop, heavily augmented by a string section that includes violin, cello, double bass and the occasional guitar, mandolin and ukelele has almost no peer. It just isn’t something people do anymore, if they ever really did in any numbers

It’s likely that, were they formed today, they would struggle to find a market. It’s a little too accessible for the hip crowd; not quite edgy enough for the art school folk, a little too artsy for the average pop fan. Perhaps if they lost the strings and the eastern European folk influences it could be flogged as some kind of Tim Freedman-style adult contemporary caper. 

Fortunately, The Cake, as ivory-tickler David Bridie refers to the band, have spent the better part of 3 decades building a devoted fan base who embrace their version of chamber pop and don’t have to care about carving niches and spoon feeding it to the kids. The chamber pop label is as apt or as meaningless as any other genre tag in that the acts to whom it is applied often have almost nothing sonically in common. In this case the thread appears to be an embrace of textured, melodic music where being able to play your instrument matters and making something pleasing to hear is considered a positive.

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With no support they play two sets in the Canberra Theatre’s Playhouse, which would ordinarily be the perfect venue for MFTCC but on this night in the middle of a Canberra winter, was fucking freezing to the point where Bridie had trouble keeping his hands limber enough to play the magnificent Steinway that took up half the stage.

Mostly, Bridie led the band through their back catalogue and introduced the songs and their history in an affable, leisurely sort of way. Taking a moment to observe what a complete prick the current immigration minister is was about as controversial as the proceedings got, because this performance was all about the building layers of sound.

Leading the audience in a version of ‘Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition’ was probably as close to interactive as the evening got; this was more the kind of thing you sit back and let wash over you. 

Special mention must  go to Hope Csutoros. The sheer joy she appears to take in playing her well worn violin is truly something special to see.  

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