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The Lucksmiths have always counted Tilley’s Café and Canberra as a special place for them to perform. There was absolutely no doubt that they would include Canberra and of course Tilley’s as part of their farewell tour.

Supporting was good friend Darren Hanlon accompanied by the gracious and stunningly beautiful Bree Van Ryk with her most stylish haircut, who featured on drums, percussion and accordion. Not to mention the sweetest backup vocals. Is there anything she can’t do?
As usual, Darren was casually chatting about his songs and getting to know the audience. He cheekily asked if he could get a lift to Brisbane for the next gig with one crazy fan that is attempting to follow most of the tour. Darren offered up some new material, including a tune about renovations in Sydney driving him crazy. He described the tracks as “bladder bursting” tunes but despite the quantity, there was no compromise on quality.

Not forgetting where he came from, Hanlon played plenty of older material. Inviting a former band member of The Simpletons, Brad Cheers to the stage, they played everyone’s favourite Lismore bashing tune 2480 shortly before ending the set.

A credit to the band’s modesty, The Lucksmiths set up the stage themselves and didn’t keep the crowd waiting too long for their double set (to allow people to relieve themselves halfway through) and triple encore. Yes that’s right. The crowd managed to lure the band onstage over and over, in attempt to delay in the inevitable end.

With that much playing time the Melbourne boys gave the audience a diverse set representative of the last 16 years the band has been together, including T-Shirt Weather, The Chapter In Your Life Entitled San Francisco and Camera Shy.

Of course they played lots of less known tunes that many Lucksmiths’ nerds would mouth the lyrics to. They have that dumbfounded look on their face, looking longingly at the band for some kind of recognition of their loyalty and obsessive-compulsive behaviour. But that is the kind of emotion these guys inspire in people. Tali, with his signature stand up drumming, plays with such fervour and sings effortlessly alongside Marty and Mark with perfectly rehearsed back ups.

Speaking of an audience stunned, give people a chair and a table to sit at and they become statues. If it weren’t for the raucous clapping and cheers between songs you could be mistaken for thinking everyone was insanely bored but instead they were mesmerised and deeply engrossed in the heart melting tunes.

It was good to see that the usual hecklers were in the crowd, calling out for encores half way through the first set. The band responded well and as always were joking around with the audience and having a chat. Their banter was laugh out loud funny which included Tali acting out walking around with wah wah pedals in your shoes (imagine porn star) and Mark (bass) speaking in French by simply saying “baguette”. Then it was Marty’s (guitar) turn when he back announced Broken Bones in jest given the last few lines of the song is just broken bones repeated over and over. I could have sworn they used that joke last time they played. You totally missed out if you weren’t there.

The boys were open to requests but when one fan shouted out for Victor Trumper this track was a little too old to recall for performance. Incidentally, Tali was apparently uninformed of The Lucksmiths new found fortunes when Marty and Mark revealed that the song made it on the SBS CD release to celebrate the Ashes entitled: Stumped! Songs We Love About Cricket.

Now these guys don’t strike me as the John Farnham type with empty promises of final tours so if you didn’t catch them you will have to race to Melbourne for their final shows in Melbourne this week.

Well sadly its over and I am choking up inside so I will leave it to the boys themselves, a quote from their farewell message on their website. Ah crap its too late, I need my hanky. Farewell The Lucksmiths, the most amazing band that has great music, classic humour and incredibly pleasant personalities. I am so depressed I’m gonna go get some Rubies frozen custard with m&ms and chocolate fudge.

“We had tried to operate the band in a way that would suit all of us, but at the same time we’ve been very conscious that too much compromise would in the end affect our creative output. We’re very proud of the music we make, and we certainly didn’t want it to start stinking. So, in taking our cues from Devo, we’ve decided to whip the proverbial cream before it sits out too long…We really want to thank you all, especially the wonderful people who’ve helped us out in any way, and anyone who’s listened to our music or come to a show. We’ve loved having you in our world and we will miss you dearly. xo The Lucksmiths

*Brad is single and lives in Queanbeyan. He enjoys playing music, socializing with friends and catching live bands. For further information about Brad, please direct all enquiries to Mokdaddy. Attach a photo and tell us a bit about yourself.

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