Damon Smith and the QualityLightweights @ The NorthcoteSocial Club, Melbourne(05/08/2011)

Mon 8th Aug, 2011 in Gig Reviews

Really, Damon Smith, really??!!!

You’ve chosen to launch your debut album tonight supported by Clinkerfield? You’ve decided that you’re quite happy to get on stage in the wake of the macabre master of vaudeville, Jimmy Stewart, currently lambasting this group of Northcote Socialites with his swagger and stagger and spit? After Stewart, a proven industry ‘heavyweight’(and resplendent tonight in a monks robe), hypnotises this mob with brutality and raw genius, you’re going to saunter on with your ‘lightweights’ and claim your crown?

I ask you, Damon: Is this really the best idea you’ve ever had?
‘Fuck yes,’ it transpires.

Tonight, Clinkerfield , forever brilliant, douse the house with a tank load of unholy spirit; Damon Smith and his Quality Lightweights coolly flick a match and set the place on fire.

It’s been a long time coming, this gig. Damon Smith and his lightweights have amassed a following from years of meandering around Melbourne’s music venues. The majority of songs played tonight have been heard on numerous stages before. But tonight – behold! – an album, I Thought I’d be Someone by Now.

On stage, The Quality Lightweights conjure up a seamless tome of raw tales, picking at the scabs of common neuroses and inabilities (to man-up, make-out and realise the dream). Our narrator, lythe and somewhat serious, kicks out his stories on the dais. Spinning yarns of questioned friendships, adultery and jail, his fathomlessly deep voice surfaces only to plead for redemption. All is delivered with unflinching honesty. Try and look away.

The Quality Lightweights meanwhile are clearly no such thing. Elsewhere referred to as an ‘alt-supergroup’ Dan Lethbridge (guitar), David Cosma (bass) Lisa Marmur (keys) and Adam Coad (drums) weave with and around each other with the knock-out skills that earn them each their individual heavyweight titles. Paul Jonas is equally resplendent on violin.

Standouts of the night include the gut-smacking opener I Won’t Wait Around Here and the album title track I Thought I’d be Someone by Now – clearly an anthem for the modern man. The crowd holler through the five part a cappella harmonies in Call Up Dad (but don’t call anyone who cares…) while Smith’s solo, Oh God, performed edgily (if somewhat nervously) at the piano , brings the room to ovation.

With the acerbic refrain of “So from now”, Smith reminds us testily that he’d hate us to think he’d change, to be a better man. Change would be a travesty. Damon Smith really is someone right now.