Project Description

THE STRANGLERS
+ THE GOOCH PALMS
@ The Gov
11/02/20
(Live Review)

Reviewer & Photographer : Colin Reid

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Tuesday night in Adelaide and on Port Road Alice Cooper at The Entertainment Centre was facing off against The Stranglers across the road at The Gov. Car parks filled up and packed trams brought the mixed group of punters to Hindmarsh. The ever green Alice certainly had a much bigger crowd but The Gov was pretty much full too. Not bad for a midweek gig night!

Opening up for The Stranglers were Newcastle’s The Gooch Palms. The Goochies are a super fun 2 piece featuring Kat on drums and vocals and Leroy on guitar and vocals. For a 2 peice they make a great wall of punky sound. Trademark humour from Leroy was on display from the start getting stuck into Scomo before launching into the new single “Great Dividing Range“. They rifled their way through an exciting set. Kat toasted the crowd with a can of Coopers Pale which she described as “Adelaide’s finest”. Leroy’s rugby league jokes were struggling in a non- rugby league playing State, “remember when Adelaide had a rugby league team?” he quipped “me neither, go Rams”. 

An Aussie as mix of catchy pop punk tunes they are super fun to watch, they love messing around and joking with the crowd but this band sure can play. “Guitar music will keep the world rockin!” Indeed it will Leroy! The pair share the vocals between them and set highlights were “Don’t look me up” and “Busy Bleeding”.  The pairs red hair, Kat, and red tartan skirt, Leroy, were an interesting counter point to the darkness of the men in black and most of the crowd.  Before they finished up, Kat gave a shout out to the group of die hard Stranglers fans who occupied the barrier. It turned out that these fans had flown out from the UK to follow The Stranglers across Oz and NZ and had been front and centre at every gig. These fans must have learned to love the Goochies too over the 5 nights because at least 2 of them bought Gooch Palm albums on vinyl from the merch desk during the band change over.

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The venue had now filled up nicely in expectation of the main event. As usual the band were in their trademark black uniform, with bass player JJ Burnell wearing those special edition Dr Marten’s ‘The Stranglers‘ special edition boots that he is so proud of.“Its a long time since we played in pub” joked lead Stranglers singer Baz “look, there is a nice bar over there and a beer garden out the back”. ‘Steady on mate’, I thought, ‘this is the best pub live venue in the country!’ and to be honest it suits them more than The Thebbie which had hosted them on their last couple of recent tours.

True to form they sounded amazing, the band was really up for it. Totally on the top of their game. They are such a tight outfit and they clearly love playing live. JJ was smiling and sharing a word or too with familiar faces in the crowd, Dave was sneaking beers in between songs, Jim beating the skins and Baz’s banter was in fine form as he joked around with the audience often at the roadies expense. As usual for a Stranglers Australian tour the hire equipment broke. This time it was Dave’s keyboards which had to be subbed out mid-show which was an opportunity for more gags from Baz.  Seriously, even with cheap hired keyboards Dave sounds amazing.

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The crowd are singing along, swaying and jumping around with every song. The venue is hot and sweaty on a summer’s night and JJ removes his shirt and towels the sweat off his chest whilst Baz razzes him up. A couple of songs later as the sweat pours off Baz’s shaved head, JJ gets his revenge and grabs the same towel to make a point of mopping Baz’s brow. This is a band with not only a great work ethic but also a tight camaraderie and sense of fun with each other. They genuinely love playing together and it shows.  At one point JJ and Baz come together and advance onto the crowd, edging ever closer their guitars outstretch pointing to the audience until from the edge of the stage they set out across the pit and on to the barrier in unison. A man in black vanguard piercing the centre of the crowd!

All the hits we wanted are played. The crowd more or less sang “Golden Brown” which was followed immediately by the equally brilliant “There’s Always the Sun“.  I remember reading something that ex-lead singer Hugh Cornwall wrote where he said he felt that the record company had completely mishandled that song and that it should have been at least as big a hit as “Golden Brown” was. Listening to it live you cant help but agree with him.

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The momentum built and built. JJ’s distinctive bass and Dave’s keyboards during their amazing cover of Dionne Warwick’s “Walk on By” another definite highlight.  The regular set closed out, as usual, with a high octane version of Tank.  There was only a very short break before they were back for JJ’s vocals on “Go Buddy Go“, only the second time they’d played it in on tour according to the die hards, and lastly a storming version of “No More Heroes“.

As a side note one of the advantages of having Alice cooper across the road was seeing members of MC50, Alice’s opening act on his tour, in the crowd who had come over to catch the Stranglers and have a chat afterwards.

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Check out Colin Reid’s gallery of the show here

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Check out The Stranglers below
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AMNPLIFY – DT