While the talented acts provide some promise that the scene has started to move beyond the Hilltop Hoods sound, the effort of attending a four-hour show for under 90 minutes of performance is a little draining to say the least.
Amidst the traditional and contemporary blend of Sudanese folk songs and Aussie-Sudanese stylings, she engages her audience with stories of her past and present; from the unimaginable horrors of learning of the deaths of her family and friends in conflict-ridden South Sudan to the struggles and adventures of her everyday life in Australia.
He’s droll and self-deprecating as only a hipster who makes fun of hipsters can be, and will gladly make his own onstage shortcomings the focus of his humour.
After each artist concluded I was sure I had found my favourite, only to once again be left astounded, as the next performance gave me an equal amount of goose bumps. A truly awe-inspiring show.
The seven permanent and two semi-regular members met at an open mic night in a Brisbane Irish pub, run by band member Ben Salter. They bonded over a desire to collaborate and a shared love of gin, and the rest is history.
Hot Dub Time Machine is a show with a basic philosophy: bring people together through music and dance. In order to do this the insatiable host DJ Tom Loud encourages party goers to dance, drink, sing and share the love, and every person in the Paradiso tent did just that.
The overall impression is that too little attention has been paid to the staging and lighting… and the whole effect of the piece needs to be re-imagined and reworked with the audience firmly in mind.
This is the kind of music that keeps you warm in winter. Or on a chilly February night in Adelaide.
The quality of the musicianship of the duo is not flawless, but the songs are performed with such earnestness and evident joy that these flaws can be overlooked. Music snobs that want exact replication can pay $150 to see the great man perform in person. Music lovers, however, will enjoy the history lesson and the mere enunciation of his lyrics by a pair of musicians that have been touched the power of those words.
Zelenyuk has an obvious classically-trained voice, and whilst quite dissimilar from the Piaf she claimed to be, her hearty, large and varied vocal range engaged the audience as she performed well-loved renditions of “La foule”, “Milord”, “Mon Dieu”, “L’accordéoniste”, “Non, Je ne regrette rien” and “La vie en rose”.
The title track on the new album is revealed to be inspired by Play School’s “Shake Your Sillies Out,” thanks to Taasha’s 2-year-old son. It’s a lush, sexy track (forget the Play School) that, if you’ve ever had to shake your sillies out, will speak to you like that talking hamster did that time you had an existential crisis and went on a three-week bender.
As the night was working towards its crescendo the untapped energy of the audience began to become uncontainable, so much so that even the sixty-year-olds rocked out to the last song, Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky”.
Pilot Records have single-handedly changed the Adelaide music scene. Everything they do is gold. So get on it.
When John Grant took to the stage it was to make a statement. A bearish, bearded man, dressed simply in jeans and a button-down shirt, he wasn’t here to wow us with his stagecraft...
Trickles of punk, jazz, and swing crept their way through each song, highlighting the fact that in addition to being a bunch of cute vagabonds there are also undeniably talented musicians.
