Review - Brisbane Australia 29 March 2003, The Zoo

One of the downsides of being a fan of a band that
plays fairly laid-back, cruisey, melancholy music is
that its fans are too damn laid-back, cruisey and/or
melancholy to bother writing reviews for the rest of
their brothers/sisters in the lambchop users group.
Naturally there are exceptions with emails entitled
"lamchop bergen nien von hausen rich ech don" and
"lambchop du vois bien de blume". I will do my bit to
turn that around with my lengthy stream of
consciousness drivel below. . . I will make it lengthy
for like-minded obsessives.

It was about 6 months ago that I complained miserably
about my plight - I live in a town and at a point on
the globe that I thought lambchop would never visit.
I considered trips to Europe/the States to see them,
but alas I am a mere pawpaw, or is that pauper?

A word of warning to any hardcore lambchop-types out
there - if lambchop are coming to town and you send
them an "Ask Lambchop" message on their webpage, and
that message asks them whether or not they will let
you play with them when they came to town, they wont
respond. So save yourself the rejection. Maybe they
misinterpreted "play". Anyway their loss. Come to
think of it, it would have been everybody's loss if I
had gotten up on stage. I would have been ok on
electric triangle though.

Anyway cut to the chase, I was pretty exicited to hear
that the boys from the chop (no girls this time) were
coming to town. Line-up advertised as follows : sam
baker, tony crow, william tyler, matt swanson and kurt
wagner. I rounded up 6 friends and wandered off to
Brisbane's premier indie rock venue, the Zoo. It
might fit 1500 people.

I arrived at the t-shirt stand only to find that as it
was the last gig on the tour, there were no cd's, no
t-shirts (other than "big"-sizes, "big" meaning, "he
is 3 foot 2 and he is a "big" person") and no hats
left. Did score a nice poster though.

Lambchop's Merger labelmate from New Zealand Dave
Kilgour was the support - I did'nt see much off him
due to being old (29) and unable to stand for long
periods of time without needing to sit down and have a
cup of tea. So I went to the pub (read : bar /
bierehausen / nom de chatel de champignon?) and
watched the footy.

When I returned to the Zoo, the lads were setting up
(aw how cute, no roadies), and the venue was about 3/4
full. The reports were that the venue was empty was
last time they were in town, so well done guys on
coming back and drawing a very healthy crowd. I hope
and pray (dont know who to) that it is justification
for you to come back soon.

Now, to be honest, I raped my lungs in a fairly
obscene manner before and during the concert, so the
memory is a tad scratchy. But this is what I recall
of the set list:

Piano Intro
The Daily Growl
The New Cobweb Summer
My Blue Wave
Is A Woman
Caterpillar
Soaky in the Pooper
Up With The People
Steve McQueen
Betweemus
Hey Where's Your Girl
Stranded (The Saints)
Plus 5 songs comprised of newies and covers.

Kurt played with passion throughout. Like Josh Rouse
(thanks for coming last year Josh - another great gig)
Kurt shuts his eyes and opens his heart. He seems to
gaze at his feet when his eyes arent shut, or it may
be at pedals or songs or just plain gazing. But no
complaints here. Not a lot to say in between songs,
but appeared to be genuinely grateful for all who had
come to see them play, and for their appreciation of
their music. As one of my friends commented "he seems
to have a very strong personality." I guess to any
chop fans that is pretty obvious.

As to the supporting cast, I'm pretty sure the fellow
on piano was a guy called Ray. He told a few bad
jokes that were well received and played the piano as
though it came as easily as a heartbeat. Ray reminded
me of someone from a tv show but im not sure who.

Matt Swanson on bass was a study in concentration all
night it seemed, but equally brilliant. Great
variation in the bass lines and i didnt hear a dud
note all night.

William Tyler was seated (probably closer to the stage
door than to the stage) and i didnt see to much of
what he was doing with his guitars. Sorry William.

There was another guitarist who was very good
throughout. Added a lot to some songs and improved on
the originals - my only criticism was that the rhythm
on "up with the people" was different to the album
version. I know this because whenever i try to play
the album version i struggle to get the rhythm just
right. Maybe he didnt want to, free country eh.

Drums were also fantastic.

Watching Kurt play the first few songs from Is A Woman
reinfoced my idea that i would never be able to play
them on guitar. But they were great versions. For a
few of the songs the band would suddenly crank the
chorus (Nirvana/Grunge style) and then just as
suddenly return to the piano bar sound. And it
sounded awesome. It may be a sign of things to come
on the new record, which they are rumoured to be
returning to the States to record at this very moment.

Lambchop were also kind enough to cover a song by one
of our hometown bands - The Saints' Stranded. Maybe
they didnt know Savage Garden came from Brisbane too
(that is Australian dry humour not to be taken
seriously), but hopefully there is always next time.

We were fortunate enough to get two encores, and the
crowd were pretty noisy for a third, but no such luck.

Apologies to the band for the hecklers, even if they
were well informed and were yelling for fairly obscure
songs (eg moody fucker). And well done for playing
two of the requests - Up With The People and Soaky In
the Pooper. The new songs sounded great, probably
more up-tempo than the last cd.

Lambchop - thanks x million for coming to town,
hopefully you enjoyed your stay and are keen to come
back in the near future. Cant wait for the next CD,
hope you keep enjoying making your music and it
does'nt get too painful.

Anyways, I cant think of anything else, thanks for
reading.

Graeme











__________________________________________________
Yahoo! Plus
For a better Internet experience
http://www.yahoo.co.uk/btoffer