Hilltop Hoods and Lowrider -Myspace Secret Show @ TheGovernor Hindmarsh, Adelaide(16/01/08)

Mon 21st Jan, 2008 in Gig Reviews

To be completely honest, I’ve never been a huge fan of the Hilltop Hoods live set. I saw them headline the Falls Festival, play the Big Day Out, even get the biggest audience ever for an South Australian act at the Entertainment Centre when they recently played with the ASO. But I never found the group quite had enough presence required for the huge stages they where playing – it never rocked my socks off.

The other night the ever evolving Hilltops (at their “secret” Myspace gig) tried something new, live instruments. They called on local funk/R&B outfit Lowrider to provide the back beats, with the assistance of the Restrung string quartet.

Lowrider started the night with a couple of their own tracks, which wetted the appetite of the raucous crowd that had queued for hours at The Gov. It was a barmy night and after a couple beverages the punters where going pretty nuts. Vocalist Joe Braithwaite oozed personality, and the now lubricated crowd where lapping it up.

After only two tracks, MC’s Pressure, Suffa and DJ Debris burst on to the stage and played a medley of tracks ranging from Testimonial Year, to covers of De La Soul and AC/DC’s Back in Black. The band and the boys seemed to be merging well, with all the tracks seemingly translating well to live instrumentation and even giving the Hilltops more room for improvisation than before.

After the initial medley, they moved onto mostly material off The Hard road Restrung album, including Recapturing the Vibe and Clown Prince. For the last couple tracks they ditched Lowrider for Debris backbeats as they strode into crowd pleaser Nose Bleed Section – maybe Lowrider haven’t quite mastered the Hilltops back catalogue yet. It was good, but highlighted how much extra stage presence Lowrider gave to the Hilltop’s songs, with Lowrider’s Joe dancing and providing backing vocals to every track; really adding to the on stage vibe. The crowd got one encore being Circuit Breaker, before it was time to pull up stumps.

I thought that by playing a secret gig on a Tuesday night to a relatively small crowd the Hiltop’s would experiment with some new material (there have been talk of the guys hitting the studio again). Maybe it was too soon for that, but the experiment with Lowrider paid off. I will definitely give them another go at the Big Day Out this year.

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