Sun Rising. Space Theatre. 11 Jun 2015
Don't you think the theatre on the cover of the Cabaret Festival program - at a glance, when you are walking past it in a display stand - looks like a full whiskey bottle? Subliminally? No? Just me?
I could just imagine B. Humphries scouting out Sun Rising in some smoke machine-generated smoky honky tonk in Melbourne, marveling at this band's awesome respect for the colour conversion of blues from black to white, and the birth of rock & roll, in Sam Phillips's Memphis recording studio, where he pressed the black plastic with the Sun Records label for some of the biz's biggest names in their nascent condition in the mid-1950s. I felt the same love, especially from band leader David Cosma's renditions, without imitation, of some of Elvis's first recordings. He looked so proud. But a little miffed when slightly upstaged by Adrian Whyte's fulsome Folsom Prison as a youthful Johnny Cash poltergeist.
David Cosma is keen you get the story right, presenting Phillips and his stable of stars story chronologically, and introducing the songs with a wealth of appreciated information. Helping David with his dream is the fabulous Damon Smith. Smith rips the ivory off the 88s with terrifying slides, yet tickles his way through solos - he is both slap and tickle. His gravelly voice was absolutely spot on for Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison.
The band is further motivated by Adam Coad and Trent McKenzie on drums, and bass and double bass respectively. I loved the way McKenzie pounded and slapped the double bass strings like someone's soft bottom. When the aforementioned Whyte's not Cash, he's encouraging the electric lead guitar to weep and cry.
The crowd comprised mainly age types who were teens in the 50s or just after, and they loved the music made before the day the music died (slight homage to Don McLean's American Pie). They were enthralled with Sun Rising's catalogue of Presley, Orbison, Howlin' Wolf, BB King, Perkins, Cash, Lewis and also to learn how it all began. The only thing missing was the dance floor.
David Grybowski
When: 11 to 13 Jun
Where: Space Theatre
Bookings: Closed
