Ash Grunwald @ The Gov,Adelaide (29/07/11)

Thu 18th Aug, 2011 in Gig Reviews

The night began with local opener, Laura Hill who played a nice set of folksy songs to the warm and appreciative crowd. Her beautiful and slightly quirky numbers were perfect as the first support slot.

Next up were Byron Bay lads, The Grains, who definitely warmed up this close to full house with their brand of rootsy psychedelic rock. They were really well received and their set was broken up nicely with their different styled/paced tracks. They were followed by footage from a local surf video called Underated which was nicely shot and a worthy addition to the evenings vibe.

Ash Grunwald arrived on stage and immediately announced”’I love coming to Adelaide and I love coming to The Gov”. This is a statement he’d go onto repeat throughout the night. The first track was the pumping new album opener, Walking which was followed by older track, Love and an acapella version of blues standard Revelator. This track was covered by The White Stripes on their first album in the form of Canon and its definitely not hard to hear that stripped back blues rock sound in Ash’s tracks. Another influence was shown when Ash went into a version of Trouble So Hard (perhaps best known as the sample on Mobys Natural Blues ) and later a Tom Waits number in the encore. It’s nice to know he wears his influences proudly on his sleeve yet his sound is very much its own thing.

Ash’s friendly vibe really rubbed off well as he began taking requests like the quirky Dolphin Song, the saucy Hot Mama, the jiving Mojo, Tear The Roof Off with the ever so catchy Tell Everybody, Breakout and the encore of Going Out West where he got a few audience members up on stage.

All in all it was a great booty shakin show and I’m sure that in the not to distant future Ash Grunwald and his cohorts will be playing much much bigger venues.