| Ahh Nambour...home of soaring unemployment, searing heat, one of the ugliest main streets you will ever see, and venue for the final night of The Tea Party and Lavish's marathon trek around Australia. And the Nambour punters were clearly up for it, with the sold-out RSL Club auditorium filling up nicely as Brisbane's Lavish took the stage. |
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It's always good to see a local support getting an enthusiastic response, especially from The Tea Party's notoriously one-eyed fans - myself included. Lavish's mix of rock moves, dance grooves, and killer hooks (think of Savage Garden with loud guitars) becomes more endearing with each listen, and they are starting to reap the benefits from spending the better part of 1999 in the tourbus. Their much-flogged-on-JJJ cover of Pete Shelley's "Homosapien" and The Beatles "If I Needed Someone" (you've got to love an obscure Beatles tune) were well received, but it's fist-pumping originals like "She Said" and "Good For Me" that will see these guys playing with the big boys of Australian music in years to come. |
| The Tea Party took the stage to a hero's welcome, and for the next two and a half hours belted out one of the most inspired sets of rock music anyone, anywhere, is likely to see in their entire life. Forgive the hyperbole from a long-time Tea Party junkie, but tonight's performance from the Canadian three-piece was nothing short of magic. |
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"Are you guys like the best crowd we've ever had?" asked singer/multi-instrumentalist Jeff Martin as they ploughed through the opening triumverate of "Army Ants", "Fire In The Head" and "Psychopomp". The Nambour crowd agreed with Martin's sentiments whole-heartedly, screaming every word in unison and yelping in delight with each new twist in the musical journey. The first treat of the evening came when Jeff sang (in Arabic, no less) a spine-tingling Turkish folk song on the oud before launching into "The Halcyon Days" off their latest release TRIPtych. |
| Live favourite "Save Me" somehow took on more epic proportions than ever before, incorporating a pinch of NIN's "Hurt" and a rousing sing-a-long of the Leonard Cohen/Jeff Buckley tear-jerker "Hallelujah". Absolutely fucking incredible, and the mind-blowing continued with a stirring reading of "Inanna" from The Edges of Twilight which featured Mr Martin on the Indian sarod (kind of like a baby sitar). The intense riffery of "Temptation" concluded the main set with the whole pit surging towards the stage like a human wave. |
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"When we were growing up in Canada, there was only one Australian band we'd heard of," announced Jeff as the band returned to the stage with AC/DC's "Back In Black". They were obviously enjoying the final moments of their Australian tour, unleashing a cover-fest which took in "Voodoo Chile", "Dazed & Confused", "Bullet In The Head", "Heroes" and their own early classic "The River" before finishing with the disturbingly U2-ish new single "Heaven Coming Down". |
| Still the punters wanted more, and the chants of "Tea-Par-ty, Tea-Par-ty" lured Jeff back on stage with his acoustic for a solo reading of "The Messenger". The barnyard stomp of "Winter Solstice" led into the almost obligatory grand finale of "Sister Awake", and when Lavish frontman Nathan came on stage and started throwing watermelon to the crowd, it seemed the show was over. The Nambour faithful emerged from the RSL auditorium safe in the knowledge they had witnessed one of the world's greatest live bands at the peak of its powers. ~Kris Swales~ |
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