There’s no doubt that a gig is all the more enjoyable when the talent is clearly enjoying the gig, too. There are exceptions, of course: Tom Waits , doing his best turn as Henry Chinaski, is by stage notes reserved. Bob Dylan exercises his well-earned right to remain shtum. So it’s almost ironic, then, that The Waifs shared a stage with Dylan on his last US tour; they must have provided the yin to his yang, because they couldn’t appear happier on-stage. While others will glibly trot out a routine about how much they love coming to Adelaide, The Waifs need not platitudinise anyone. Their enthusiasm for performing is compliment enough.
The sisters’ earthy humour has the ability to transport the audience at even the most hallowed theatre to the front bar of The Roebuck Hotel back in Broome. Donna Simpson even said that she might be allergic to Adelaide, that – just as she did at this year’s Womadelaide – she would get through the show with the help of a generous dose of a popular decongestant. Particularly its stimulating qualities, it seemed, for in spite of her cold and the need to regularly sneak off-stage to blow her nose or clear her throat, she was quickly back each time to dance like a Woodstock child. Even when confined to playing the tambourine, she shook it with all the gusto of someone living out a rock and roll dream.
Since chancing upon each other in a far-flung corner of the Western Australian desert fifteen years ago, the trio has extensively toured Australia, the US and the world’s festival circuits; their unique brand of familial on-stage banter particularly appealing to the latter. Love and motherhood followed for Donna Simpson and Vikki Thorn (nee Simpson) and they relocated to Minnesota and Utah respectively. Josh Cunningham – the reluctant pragmatist, it seems – stayed on the road for a time as a member of Missy Higgins ’ band.
The Waifs are undoubtedly enjoying the opportunity to be back on the road – it’s what they know and do best – but their verve for playing the new material is clear, too. The first three songs of the set, the bluesy Pony , the soul balladry of Sweetest Dream and the country finger-picker Eternity , quickly established the diversity on SunDirtWater . While a song like Bridal Train now evokes images of the trio’s years endlessly traversing the western seaboard, it also holds up the songs they wrote while couped together in a van against the maturity of their current output: the slowly simmering jazz of the title track that seduces with teasing restraint; the country-rock riffs of No Such Thing As Goodbye that could easily be Keith Urban in full hair-flicking, boot-scooting flight; and the bouncy pop of Stay that sounds more like 99 Red Balloons than their signature tune, London Still .
Cunningham’s country influences have been clear on previous recordings and Simpson and Thorn’s familial grounding in Americana – largely attributable to their grandfather, a US Navy sailor once stationed in Australia – is well documented in print and on record. But where previous efforts have fused the trio’s varied influences into a country-folk sound, SunDirtWater bravely commits to the disparity, producing an album that reflects the worldliness that 2002’s ARIA-winning Up All Night (and, perhaps ironically, motherhood) has brought them.
