Hipsters, flipsters and finger poppin’ daddies...
If you didn't see them in the last couple of weeks, who knows when you'll see them again.
Here's a couple of reviews of the shows, just so you know what you missed.
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|THE PLUG UGLIES, THE GOLDEN CIRCLES| THE TROUBADOUR| 06.10.05|
The Golden Circles and their brand of delicate, almost Latin-flavoured lounge-pop is a little out of place at The Troubadour this evening and perhaps this is why their sound is ever more endearing. Drummer-less for the most part, the group’s usual minimalist sound is stripped back even further. Deborah Cavallaro’s voice (which bears a striking resemblance to The Cranes’s Alison Shaw) floats through the darkened room like ghosts. At every turn, The Golden Circles seem more shiny and saccharine.
Having not played a single note onstage for 14 years, the anticipation in the air lingers as The Plug Uglies prepare to blow the cobwebs from their songbook. What’s immediate about this sorely missed Sydney quintet are vocalist Roger Norris’s “interpretive dance” routines. They’re reminiscent of Simon Bonney in Wings Of Desire… except in fast-forward. Such onstage mannerisms almost take the spotlight away from the music playing behind him, but not quite.
John Willsteed and Clem Lukey’s twin (lead) guitar attack gels quickly and only becomes more menacing when Lord Tony Milner moonlights on ‘Zealous Host’. As missed hit after missed hit rolls along at a cracking pace, you can’t help but wonder why or how this band slipped under the radar of popular Australian music’s consciousness in the first place. Such musicianship and songs are rare in today’s scheme of things as The Plugs sound ever-so-contemporary and perfect within The Troubadour’s lounge-room atmosphere.
Roger Norris’s humour is outstanding and reflects the beatnik sensibility in not only his lyrics, but his banter. Obviously a little nostalgic for his former stomping ground, he wonders if Queer Man is in the audience. Those with brilliant memories will recall this once infamous band heckler of the early 1980s and his sidekick, Wally the Chinchilla lad. The heckling is most certainly a secondary part of this performance with audience members becoming a little too excited by the second coming of this brilliant Sydney band. With such a flawless and brilliant performance, perhaps somewhere in the haze of camaraderie The Plugs will return for good. Well, one can dream…
DONAT TAHIRAJ
Annandale Hotel, October 8
I hadn't thought about the Pluglies for years and years, and then my brother mentioned this reunion gig. The Annandale was, I think, the only 80s inner-city venue I did not see the Pluglies play in, so now I feel like I've got the whole set.
The most notable and saddest of these nights was an evening in 1988 when I was walking up to the Palace and met some friends who were walking in the opposite direction, and asked why they weren't going to the gig, and they said that it had been cancelled because the guitarist had hanged himself.
I'd forgotten how good a show they could put on. They weren't as shambolic as in the old days, and were much, much better dressed, and there was a proper lightshow and everything. I know that standards in live music have changed since 1991, but seeing a band like the Plug Uglies under lights that flicked on and off in different colours in time with the music - and even a strobe - well, it was damn impressive. Compared with what their gigs used to be like, it was practically stadium rock.
Lead singer Roger Norris, who it seems is something of a big man in NYC these days, has quite a fantastic voice - a grand baritone. Again, it was this feeling of grandeur that struck me; it had never occurred to me before that the Uglies were a big band, not big as in mainstream popularity, but in terms of scope, or flair, or some ill-defined sort of rocktacularness. I remember seeing REM at the Entertainment Centre back in 1992 or so, and they looked tiny and feeble; I had the opposite feeling on Saturday, that here was a band who could have walked onto a stage in a much larger room and comfortable dominated it. Of course, that impression was helped by how sympathetic the crowd was.
Most of the sympathy was for archetypal cute-female-drummer Tina, who is still a great drummer, and still cute. Speaking of which, this is probably a bit silly, but looking around the crowd, I had an odd feeling of good fortune in that I had misspent my youth in a musical scene where the women were so definitely to my taste. Conceivably there's some kind of feedback process here, and I suppose the people who are around when one comes of age are going to have some effect on one's tastes, but it's equally likely that someone could like a sort of music and not find any of the crowd to be attractive, or conversely gravitate to a scene for its girls and hate the music. I'm glad that that never happened to me.
In support were the Cannanes, another band I'd never expect to see with a proper lightshow, and they were as charming and fun as always.
Under the combined influence of beer, nostalgia and the fact that I still had $20 cash on me when the show finished, I bought the CD. We kicked on to the Townie, and I bailed at 3am when I realised that the beer at my elbow could not fit inside my body, so in the cold hard light of Sunday afternoon I was expecting to have regretted this purchase, but I don't, because it's a really good record. It's quite shocking that the Uglies never recorded a proper album, and a lot of the stuff on the CD is mastered off 4-track demos, but I'm still glad I own it.