It’s just another unassuming Sunday night in Sydney but one that is particularly bountiful for those who are inclined for a bit of live music. The streets are devoid of the customary hustle and bustle and there’s a quietude which envelops the city in spite of the impending onslaught. Most people are in a quandary. Which artist do they most want to see? If truth be told, there is no real debate. The answer, dear friends, is quite clear.
In this tiny little pocket of the city which I patiently occupy, the assembled punks and pompadoured masses are anticipating the return of the psychobilly version of the prodigal son. Tiger Army bassist Geoff Kresge has returned to the fold – and although this means naught to most people – for those here, it’s a brief return to the good old days when there was just as much psycho in their tunes as there was rock.
The familiar slap of the stand up bass heralds the band’s arrival and they begin at a boisterous pace – which they manage to maintain for the entirety of their set. It has always been a given that Tiger Army’s live performances were sub-standard. Nick 13’s vocals were always rather shaky, rendering the songs to just mere shadows of what they should be. Tonight though, something is different. He takes the stage with an unbridled energy, jerking his guitar back and forth as he launches into Devil Girl with a resounding vocal.
The band are incredibly tight and sound extraordinary, perhaps in a small part due to Kresge’s keen sense of rhythm and improvised slapping patterns. They play a curious mix of songs – the furiously paced FTW, the haunting ballad Forever Fades Away (which Nick 13 delivers with his trademark tortured warble) and the typically rockabilly Rose of the Devil’s Garden. “They sound good for a three piece band,” my companion offers, but this is not the right time to be economical with words. Good is a gross under statement.
They pace the stage with all the bluster they can summon and launch into a rousing rendition of Santa Carla Twilight. There’s an earnestness in his vocals which is entirely palpable and as he wails “eternity belongs to us” in that haunting vocal, I look around and those in the pit have stopped butting heads and gaze upright, mouthing the lyrics. The intensity is tempered by the ethereal melancholia of Lunatone. “Lunatone bring me your love,” he intones and his vocals are clear and resonant, everything they weren’t supposed to be.
Noticably absent from the set-list was the one song we had come to hear. Where was Incorporeal? The song that best characterised their revivification of a stagnant genre – the only song I had wanted to hear.
There was mumbled banter – Kresge looked like he had a bee in his bonnet, and Nick 13 appeared slightly stunned, a smirk gracing his face for much of the night. And then, a shoe. A pristine, white hi-top is thrown onto the stage and Nick 13 incorporates it into his still inaudible schtick. They forge on with an undiminishing energy, the shoe is volleyed back and forth, and those listless forms continue to slam into each other in the circle pit.
They break from the three chord wonders and launch into the brooding In the Orchard, its country twinged twang an unexpected but well received digression. The band finish their set and return to play a brief encore, yet they disappear all to quickly. It was a blink and you miss it affair. The lights are turned on and the dishevelled mass makes its way to the gaudy lights and solemn night patiently waiting outside. Life resumes again, and the earth continues to spin on its axis. For just a brief moment, though, there was respite and all we knew was the music contained within these walls.
It’s not enough. So, like that annoying street urchin, I want to stretch out these hands and ask for more (or at the very least, a brief rendition of Incorporeal) but I’ve since discovered that a little bit of Tiger Army goes a long way. It always irked me when they cried out, “Tiger Army never die” during their shows, but somehow tonight these words ring true.
