Sunshine and Clouds @ TheBasement.

Sat 19th Jan, 2008 in Gig Reviews

It’s Thursday night at The Basement and despite arriving earlier than normal, it’s already standing room only. This, I suppose, is to be expected. Tim Freedman, Old Man River (Ohad Rein) and Joel Plaskett are performing tonight – their seventh show in their – œSunshine and Clouds’ tour of the east coast.

Freedman takes the stage first, telling us he’s drawn the short straw. You can see half the audience already planning an early night, anticipating that Freedman will be the first act, and the other half looking forward to taking some of the empty seats.
After two songs of Freedman playing solo he introduces Joel Plaskett and leaves the stage.
At this point the Freedman fans settle in for the long haul, and the rest of us resign ourselves to standing all night.

Plaskett doesn’t lake long to win over the crowd, starting with – œLove This Town’. He clearly has a few fans in the audience, who express their appreciation of the song choice. His quirky comments, inserted between songs and verses keep the crowd amused, as he tells us about how he is recovering from tonsillitis (something he attributes to a “super aggressive massage” he received) and then during the next song – œWork Out Fine’ about his cat, White Fang, who has no ears, and as such, looks like a baby white seal.

The Cuthbert & The Nightwalkers Choir join him on stage for his third song. The choir adds a new dimension to the show – all the girls are dressed up in almost 50’s clothing and are playing an array of percussion instruments, as well as a melodica.

The choir leaves the stage with Plaskett, and Old Man River takes his place. He seems much more reserved than Plaskett, almost shy in comparison. He finishes his first song and then politely asks the audience if they’d mind if he were to do his next song (- œWedding Song’) unplugged? Of course the audience support this decision, and he navigates his way off the stage and onto a chair amongst the dining tables.

As the audience stood in complete silence, the song was performed with a delightful softness, accompanied only by the gentle clicking of camera phones as those watching tried to capture the performance. The song built to a beautiful finish as the choir quietly joined the stage with hushed backing vocals.

Rein joined the choir back on stage for – œBetter Place’, and unfortunately the crowd confused the normal level of music for an opportunity to start chatting again, this continued until Freedman returned to the stage. Freedman seemed slightly subdued – usually he seems to rein over the stage – keeping all the girls giggling with his cheeky banter and one liners. Tonight he seems to be happy to take a step back and let everyone share in the limelight.

He performs three songs with the help of the choir, before Plaskett and Rein join him on stage for a collaboration of Rein’s song – œWhere’s the Sunshine?’ before the half time break.

The show continues in the same manner – Plaskett (who asks the sound desk if they could possibly make the sound from his guitar more – œbuoyant and green’ at one point), Rein and Freedman all on stage for a couple of songs, intermittently joined by the choir.

Freedman advises the crowd that he will – œallow’ them to sing a long for his next song, should they know the lyrics, and what follows is an eerie version of – œBuy Now, Pay Later’ as a mostly female group of the audience half whisper the vocals to the song.

The real fun begins when Freedman is joined on stage again by Plaskett and Rein, kicking off a variety of different songs sung by all, starting with Freedman’s – œI’m Different’ and ending with a huge version of Reid’s song, – œLa’, where the entire audience is told to sing along, and Richard (of Cuthbert and The Nightwalkers fame) is pulled out of the audience to join in.

All brilliant performers and songwriters in their own right, Freedman Plaskett and Reid together create a unique and lovely evening. While the show is one that strays from the conventional tour structure of three acts performing separately, but supporting each other, the style worked beautifully and kept the audience entertained all night.