Her Majesty’s Theatre. 7 Feb 2014
I’ve been a fan of US band ‘Live’ since my high-school days, and remember fondly receiving a copy of their seminal second album, ‘Throwing Copper’, not long after its 1994 release date. That album blew my mind. To this day it is one of my all-time faves and is an album that I am pleased to report is one of the ‘things I’d want on a desert island’ - should I ever be trapped on one! It’s a truly outstanding gem where every single song is a masterpiece, and it often enjoys high rotation on my stereo.
Obviously 20 years have passed since the album’s release, and ‘Live’ went on to record a swag of other great albums too. I was lucky enough to see them at least eight or nine times before the band’s demise, and have some very fond memories of Live’s live performance, centred on main-man Ed Kowalczyk’s commanding and charismatic stage presence.
Needless to say, when I heard that Ed was planning to return to our shores as a solo artist and perform tunes from ‘Throwing Copper’, I was more than a little excited. I’d last seen Ed play here a few years back, also in solo guise, armed with an acoustic guitar and playing a swag of his solo tunes and re-envisioned acoustic versions of ‘Live’ tunes. I guessed that this performance would follow a similar vein, and was pretty keen to check it out, but what I actually got to see blew my mind in more ways than I was expecting.
The evening’s performance fired up with support act ‘Lester The Fierce’, and Melbourne singer-songwriter Anita Lester opened proceedings armed only with an acoustic guitar and an amazing set of vocal chords. Her music was passionate and blues influenced, though it was also refreshingly non-generic, quite separate from the spate of female singer-songwriter hipster wannabes that end up sounding just like everybody else. There was a sense of sincerity in her music, which was most welcome. At times, she reminded me of Jeff Buckley, and her cover of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ was earth-shattering! Not a bad show, and certainly a worthy opener.
But it was Ed Kowalczyk that we’d all come to see and when he and his band took the stage and the opening notes of ‘The Dam At Otter Creek’, the first track from ‘Throwing Copper’, began to play we knew we were in for a special night. Ed was joined by a young guitarist, bass player and drummer, and surrounded by amps and electric instrumentation, this show was definitely not going to be a cruisy acoustic session; the guitars flared and Ed’s voice soared! It was game on, and all of a sudden I was transported back to the ’90s, like I was hearing ‘Throwing Copper’ for the first time. And it only got better from there!
The band quickly followed Otter with the classic chords of ‘Selling The Drama’, and it became quickly apparent that the show would not only going to include the classic tunes from ‘Throwing Copper’, but they’d be played in all their electrified glory in original album order, and with all the passion Ed could muster. And that’s a lot of passion!
By the time track three, the massive hit ‘I Alone’, started the whole Her Majesty’s Theatre audience was on their feet and dancing - and there we stayed right up to the closing tune.
Obvious crowd pleasers were the hits like ‘Iris’, a sensational version of ‘All Over You’ and the biggie, ‘Lightning Crashes’. While I do like that tune, its radio-popularity has lessened its effect on me, but tonight, it was like hearing it for the first time. Truly amazing stuff! Classic album tracks like ‘Shit Towne’, ‘Stage’, and ‘Pillar Of Davidson’ went down spectacularly well, and had the crowd singing along, dancing, head-banging, arm waving and just about every other kind of participatory gesture you can imagine. What a show!
Just like the album, things began to wrap up with the offbeat tune ‘Horse’ (also known as ‘Untitled’, since on the album it actually isn’t named!), and for the first time in the night, I didn’t know what to expect next, apart from more awesomeness. Ed didn’t disappoint, as after ‘Horse’, we were treated to a new tune from his latest solo album, ‘The Flood And The Mercy’. Ed was joined by Anita Lester (The Fierce) for the tune ‘All That I Wanted’, and it was a rather nice moment and great way to bookend ‘Throwing Copper’.
But it wasn’t over yet. Still armed with the semi-acoustic guitar from ‘All That I Wanted’, Ed continued the tunes with the classic ‘Live’ track ‘Run To The Water’, much to the pleasure of the crowd, and with that the main set drew to a close.
While ‘Throwing Copper’ may have reached album’s end, with a couple of bonus tracks thrown in, our show was not to end just yet. As the crowd roared to bring Ed and his band back, he succumbed to the calls and again took centre stage, blasting into a blistering version of ‘Lakini’s Juice’, the first single from Live’s follow-up album to ‘Throwing Copper, Secret Samahdi’. While I was secretly hoping this would signal Ed and his band playing the rest of that album (of course, to be followed by all of Live’s back-catalogue!), I guessed we were in for a smattering of different tunes from across Ed’s past. And I wasn’t disappointed; we got another newbie from ‘The Flood And The Mercy’, the new single ‘Seven’, before a fantastic high-energy version of ‘Heaven’, from Live’s ‘Birds Of Pray’ album.
Ed then demonstrated his song-writing prowess with a tune from his first solo track ‘Grace’ and then, like all good things, the show had to come to an end, but not before a rousing take on ‘The Dolphin’s Cry’ from Live’s ‘The Distance To Here’. Truly a brilliant tune, this was a perfect way to end a perfect show featuring a perfect artist playing the perfect album. What a night!
Luke Balzan
When: Closed
Where: Her Majesty’s Theatre
Bookings: Closed