The Go Betweens, Sophie Koh @Forum Theatre, 15/07/05

Tue 19th Jul, 2005 in Gig Reviews

This Melbourne gig by The Go Betweens saw the return of some pretty old memories come flooding back to the at times fanatic core following of admirers.

After a splendid warm up performance by the rising Sophie Koh, The Go Betweens hit the stage one by one, starting with co founder Grant McLennan establishing the scene for what was to follow. McLennan strummed gently on acoustic guitar and delivered Black Mule before Robert Forster glides towards stage left with the reasonably new rhythm section of Glenn Thompson and Adele Pickvance on bass and backing vocals completing the line up.

From here on in the tone was set with a smattering of old and new material gracing the ear of every single core fan in the Forum Theatre that night. From the irrepressible and iconic Streets Of Your Town, Cattle And Cane and Was There Anything I Could Do? To the modern day poetry of Here Comes A City and Finding You, The Go Betweens set about reacquainting themselves with the heavy Melbourne fan base of art/rock performance lovers.

The audience lip synched, sung out loud, danced like crazy and stamped both feet and hand to the band’s antics and called for more and more during the set breaks. At times the uninitiated would have been forgiven for believing that they had stumbled head first into a type of religious sect or even better a meeting or reunion of the class of 1978 art student party, such was the fervour in the room on this given night.

With a couple of encore songs towards the end of the set – including the old school People Say and Love Goes On (although ten years difference between the two, the philosophical writing style of Forster and McLennan remains the same and was appreciated and embraced by ther punters for the 21st century interpretations The Go Betweens would give them.

And then that was that – 23 songs in the can in a little over two hours.

The Go Betweens disappeared into the night, leaving their loyal following more than satisfied to witness over 20 years of poetic history flash before their very eyes. To rip a line from the Friends Of Rachel Worth’s ‘Spirits’ for the purposes of summarising the meaning of The Go Betweens return to Australian shores;

“I’ve got tickets
To the best show in town
If you want to come on down and listen
I’m ready and I might come along
With something that you’ve been missing.”