Dirty Three, Loene Carmen,Beck's Festival Bar, 13/1/05

Thu 20th Jan, 2005 in Gig Reviews

The layout of the Beck’s Festival Bar is pretty simple – a long, rectangular tent sits in the dusty forecourt of Sydney’s historic Hyde Park Barracks, with one side open to a larger, uncovered area. A video screen is hooked up for the benefit of those who don’t wish to cram inside the tent with the more eager punters, and the sound system is – this year – one of the best-mixed clutch of speakers that you’re likely to hear at an ostensibly outdoors gig. As the night grows darker, the red light atop Sydney tower becomes a fixed point for many during the almost trancelike moments of the gig. Bats wheel overhead, trees blow in the breeze, and the general effect is peaceful and calm – something to make you realise how beautiful an evening in Sydney can be. Surrounding office buildings, empty floors lit brightly, look like theatre-boxes, devoid of patrons, giving rise to the feeling that the area’s no longer part of a cityscape, but a gigantic theatre.

The crowds milling around the venue, though, seemed to be a lot more interested in ephemera than in paying attention to what was happening on stage. Which, as it happens, was a shame: Loene Carmen was in fine – though not necessarily earthshaking – form this evening. Her haunted drawl seemed to befit the evening’s headliners, though the singer jokingly apologised for the fact that her band seemed unable to play properly. A slight untruth – this evening, Carmen’s backing musicians seemed to nail the sound she seeks in a much more convincing manner than was recorded on her album Slight Delay. This was, unfortunately, lost on a number of punters, whose search for socialisation or suds seemed to be a little more important than the singer’s work. The thumbprints of Mazzy Star are pretty heavily imprinted on the tunes offered here, but there’s no denying that the music has the potential to be particularly moving – it’s just a shame that too few people noticed during this set.

Those who’d expected a shortish, 45-minute whip through a couple of Dirty Three tunes were to be happily proven wrong as violinist Warren Ellis bounded onstage, asking the venue’s engineer to “make me sound like Jim Morrison – a man’s gotta aim for something.” Clearly, this was to be a night of enthusiasm.

“People ask me, ‘Is it true that the youth of Australia sit around campfires playing US Forces?” announced a grinning Ellis, violin bow at the ready. “And I say no, they play this folksong written by a bunch of pricks from Melbourne!” And with that, the band begins Everything’s Fucked.

It was a brilliant reintroduction to the band. Formerly a song that’s resided later in their set, the tears-in-beers introspection made a big hit when presented early on, with Ellis’ violin ranging between sweet tremolo and bagpipe-skirling notes of feedback. A bearded Jim White on drums played with muscular sympathy, while Mick Turner played the role of textural guitar hero without looking – again! – like he’s actually comfortable being watched by people.

After such a forceful opener, the mood was assuredly kept light. Bounding about, an exuberant Ellis displayed a clarity and zest for performance that’s sometimes been missing from the band’s shows – all this from a man who’s happily ensconced in family life, and spends a shitload of time on the road as a member of the Bad Seeds. Whatever the reason, it felt good to have the performer in such a buoyant frame of mind, and the now-standard discursive song introductions seemed touched with a little more humour this evening than usual. Throughout tunes of the evening, his amped-Paganini movements are scintillating, with moments of tension punctuated by high-kicks, band interplay, and some of the most throatily disgusting phlegm-spitting any venue’s seen.

Indian Love Song, one of the band’s earliest numbers, proved next in line, its initial plucked riff accompanied by a tambourine played atop a cymbal. The band seemed to enjoy playing with the song a little more than usual, manipulating it into quieter spaces than a crowd would normally hear, leaving room for White to take a polyrhythmic solo, before the trio kicked back in again to bring the tune to its thundering conclusion. From here – and after denying a crowd request for Kim’s Dirt – the plaintive whisper of Hope came out, marred only by a guitar problem. The almost-folk sinuousness of the song’s main violin theme rang out over the crowd, conversation stilling.

Following a bit of playful banter about “the Mick Turner signature guitar,” and observations that “You’d think this was a farewell tour!”, Sea Above, Sky Below – a tune that was, according to Ellis, about being Jerry Lee Lewis’s piano – crept out into the crowd, with a violin tone that sounded, on occasion, like rattlesnakes crawling across a sea floor.

Perennial showstopper Sue’s Last Ride, a tune dedicated to departed friends everywhere, is next, and the violence of the song is undiminished. As the song gathers momentum, the wheels seem to be on the verge of coming off the whole endeavour, with chaos just around the corner, but miraculously it all holds together. Like a wave, the song builds tension, reduces to silence, then builds once more, until it’s lost in a frenzy of bludgeoning, white-noise squall. Ellis holds his violin out, dancing in the amplifier’s wash, and as the sawing recommences, the band form a sort of huddle, tight and watching each other. White’s drumming arms are a blur, Turner a mask of concentration. The confusion increases, until suddenly, there’s shouted numbers, just audible over the din;

“One, two, three, four!”

and the band kicks back in with incredible force, ending with gypsy sass and exhausted grace. Electrifying.

With a tale about having to turn down Ray Martin’s offers of piano-accordion work, a song from the band’s currently-being-recorded disc is proffered. Muerte (or Murder?) is a slight, ebbing affair that’s somehow more solid, more clanging than other tunes the band have produced.

“This song’s dedicated to all women,” announces Ellis, before breaking into Alice Wading. The rallying opening notes thrill, and it seems to stretch a lot longer than the album version, though the band seems to spontaneously eschew the song’s recorded conclusion and, instead, starts into No Stranger Than That, its plucked mystery and inscrutable beginnings finally giving way to a racing conclusion that sounds like a fevered pursuit through a forest, overshadowed by a keening lament. The songs blend seamlessly.

The Last Night closes the set proper, with a blessing and talk of seeing us all again thrown in. The tune is introduced as a song about those times when all things come to a close; when the cutlery’s divided and when regrets are full. Its tumbleweed-pushing western feel is perfect for this time of night; the darkest blue of the sky and the slight chill of the evening juxtaposed against the sense of wailing, of loss communicated through the song. As it comes to an end, drums rolling, Ellis screams into his violin pickup, and it sounds like someone crying out their soul.

Returning for an encore – and after an inquiry about where in the tent the band can locate some Foster’s – Horse is given a run-through, described as one of the band’s dirtiest tunes. But the real gold of the evening is the second, last song of the encore. Recorded as Deep Waters, but usually known as Epic, Ellis introduces the tune as “A big lovesong to all the people who drowned on Boxing Day.” Sitting on the stage floor for quieter, more contemplative parts, the Ocean Songs gem is polished with emotion, many punters lost in the moment. Winding on for around half an hour, the song was a launching point for thoughts and memories, a natural progression that begins with stillness and ends with an aching tumult of emotion… but always, softly, softly.

While some souls stuck around to listen to DJ Jack Shit’s selection of tunes – a set that’d stretch on to the earliest hours of morning – as the band left the stage, many wandered out into the night, feet covered in brown dust, cobwebs blown away with a sense of melancholy pride. Tonight, Dirty Three showed – again – that they’re one of the most emotional, thrilling bands this country’s produced.

Next year can’t come soon enough.