Dirty Three, Laughing Clowns @The Forum, Melbourne (21/1/10)

Thu 28th Jan, 2010 in Gig Reviews

Things started off with relatively recently reformed Laughing Clowns choosing to perform their 25+ years old compilation album History Of Rock & Roll Vol 1. A slightly different take on the Don’t Look Back formula, as most bands go with a studio album. Not that the audience were complaining but since it’s fantastic, and shown on the night to be even better live.

The great thing about this reunion was that all the original band members played, which is surprising for a post-punk aussie band from the 80s as members have a tendency to die early (see: The Birthday Party, The Triffids, The Go-Betweens etc) and all still play really well, although you can help but to focus on guitarist Ed Kuepper and saxophonist Louise Elliot. Amazingly Ed’s voice hasn’t aged at all, sounding like he sang Hey Joe yesterday, and can still kick out the jams such as on Everything That Flies (Is Not A Bird). Elliot’s great as well, clad in same hat she wore at ATP Mt. Buller indoors for some reason, her dissonant runs are still up to par on Everything That Flies.

The best thing about seeing them live is that they’re meant to be seen live, with The Forum natural reverb being the best place you could ask them to play at. The songs flow better and the music as a whole is less watered down/has more tension, hardly ever giving you a full release, i.e. like the exact opposite of an Enya album. In fact the only bad part was that there was no Eternally Yours despite the setlist, but Collapsed Board was a good closer though.

With a full house Dirty Three can still pull an audience and the ladies apparently, with “shirts off” requests being called for even before they even began (Spoiler: no they did not end up naked – though Warren Ellis did show some chest). After a quick quip about playing Supertramps’ Crime of the Century instead, they kicked things off with album opener and _Deep Waters, both reaching almost breaking point before releasing, and gaining full house applauses. The encore though was more than you could ask for, with the three playing old staples Kim’s Dirt and ARIA poll topping Everything’s Fucked closing the night.

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