Tomás Ford @ Amplifier Bar,Perth (27/01/12)

Mon 30th Jan, 2012 in Gig Reviews

Tomás Ford @ Amplifier Bar, Perth (27/01/12)

In a simmering Amplifier Bar, the night after Australia Day, Tomás Ford was up against The Wall launching An Audience With Tomás Ford, an album six years in the making. Golden ticket holders were promised a non-stop party with unusual sweets and forbidden treats across two stages.

Early birds entering via the Beer Garden Cabaret Spectacular received a Lady Boner greeting of operatic outbursts and jazzy keys courtesy of Disgrace Kelly and Audrey Crotchburn aka Caitlin Cassidy and Clare Nina Norelli. A couple of originals, namely Lady Boner Anthem and Sugar were sprinkled amongst diva covers. Kelis’s I Hate You So Much Right Now received a jolly rogering.

Without a sound-absorbing crowd in the beer garden yet, Lady Boner smiled through the competing beats of Gennaia Febbraio’s debut solo show on the main stage inside. Usually out front of Brash And Sassy, Febbraio slipped off her shoes and showed she can comfortably and convincingly fill a stage with just a laptop, drummer John Grant and some danceable disco-infused electro pop.

Back in the beer garden, Laith Tierney was pacing. Although a standout frontman for many a band, this was Tierney’s first stab at stand-up. It showed. What transpired was more rant than routine but Tierney’s no fool. He knows how it went down with the crowd and he’ll either get better and kick arse next time or can his comedy career for good.

Meanwhile, in the main room, Felicity Groom and Diger Rockwell tripped and hopped over loping beats, city sounds and subversive basslines. Groom’s sultry vocals added sizzle to an already sweltering evening.

Outside, in sinister lighting, a slicked back Byron Bard delivered five minutes of surreal soliloquies of sweet revenge. Soon after, manchild John Conway’s laptop slapstick and existential clowning played out inside.

Former Beaverloop member turned multi-discipline arts performer Leon Ewing stood and delivered a self-confessed study of the importance of being earnest with an acoustic guitar. Knowing he’d soon be drowned out by the sonic onslaught of Injured Ninja, Ewing worked it into the act by claiming to be the fifth member of the band. Right on cue, Injured Ninja began to growl in the main room. Ewing switched to a snare and began shaman drumming and the wailing of an elder for the beginnings of what he called Sweet Exorcism in D. Backing slowly away from the stage and transiting to the main room provided a live, surround sound mash-up that actually worked!

Unknown until last week, this was to be Injured Ninja’s last show for “the foreseeable future” with drummer Matt Bairstow departing the band. The temperature went up with the volume as the crowd congealed and the dancefloor finally saw action. It was classic Injured Ninja. Steven Hughes’s invasive and jabbing guitar, the groove and gear changes of Dominic Pearce’s meaty bass, Bairstow’s tight and tribal percussion, all swallowed by the frequencies of Jake Steele. Each song a Rube Goldberg machine of cause and effect. Now’s a good time for a kudos shout out to sound guy Ian Stewart.

Pearce switched strings for drum sticks and was joined on stage by Mile Enders Cameron Hines and Jerome Turle adding to the percussion. Tortured FX pedals and a feedback freq out segued into last song IDDQD, the vinyl single Injured Ninja split with French Rockets. With the arrival of Leon Ewing on stage there were now five drummers. What ensued was a sweaty, trance-inducing spray of flailing limbs and thrusting percussion that was simultaneously primal and urgent. To this point it had been Tomás Ford’s launch but Injured Ninja’s night.

Armed with an Omnichord and a voice, Schvendes temptress Rachael Dease was welcome relief in the beer garden. The crowd swayed to Give Up the Ghost with its air of Casio country and crooning on a doomed ocean cruise.

Sydney-sider Simo Soo was next to tear it up in the main room with dangerous crack hop, samples and shouting. A cover of Black Flag’s Gimme Gimme Gimme was thrown in the mix for a crowd unfamiliar with his work. Only the length of the mic lead protected punters while Simo Soo ricocheted around the room, writhing in an invisible strait jacket.

New Zealand’s Penny Ashton is touring her Fringe World Festival show Hot Pink Bits. Out in the beer garden she briefly riffed and rhymed through a beat poetry take on the intrinsic misogyny in the world of bling and booty before being dry humped by Leon Ewing. He gets around.

Somewhere in the night, Perth musical comic Zack Adams strapped on a guitar and sang an ode to familiar share house surprises nobody tells you about before you shack up with your mates. Elsewhere, *Andrea Gibb*s shared a slice of life from her high school diary. Stories of boys, gossip and fingering appropriately finished with an Alanis Morissette quote.

Boys Boys Boys! were looking for a good time and proceeded to put the show in show biz. Pumped by recent on-line rap battle victories, they kicked Management Baby off with marching band precision and the moves to boot. Their pop culture chop suey of synths, console sounds and shiny beats mean not dancing is not an option. The singles, Casio Joy and Ticky-Ticky Boom both received deserved appreciation from a wide-eyed smiling crowd.

Surrounded by gutted gizmos with their limbs switched and stitched back together, caped Super Nintendo super hero Chad Jane is The Gizzards. Doctor and the Robot began with a drum machine blurtgasm then took off like a pogo stick at a polka while Jane pulled stadium moves on the soap box stage. The snappy set of wonky swamp, sudsy surf and short circuits ended all too soon with the very danceable Fix the Robot.

As much fun as the night had been, it had never quite gelled. A less than expected turn-out and slightly schizophrenic indoor/outdoor scheduling meant it had been a night of fragments but Tomás Ford is a showman and if anyone could turn this around, he could.

Inside, on stage, lit by synchronised projections, Tomás Ford switched on, wound up and lurched at a crowd that had come together for the one reason they were all there. Ford knows how to feed a frenzy so it wasn’t long until hands were in the air. He vanished from the stage only to reappear perched on the bar to open with a reworked version of Bash Myself that was a little less Reznor and a little more trance.

Frequent fliers are more than up for interacting with Ford’s audience molestations but there’s always rabbit in the headlights moments that are equal parts entertainment and crime-in-progress. Good art does that.

Ford’s tie was removed to the giddy screams of girls as he unfurled the very naughty Nice. Next his shirt came off. This time it was the boys screaming. A Tomás Ford show is a very sexy thing! Sexy enough for a cover of Kylie’s Can’t Get You out of my Head complete with music video dance moves.

There seemed to be more than one Tomás Ford. A conga line of photographers tried to keep up as he shapeshifted around the room. A reimagined I Feel Dirty was delivered as a fire and brimstone sermon from the Amps DJ pulpit then suddenly he was in the middle of the room in collar and cape looking every bit the Napoleonic Elvis as he whispered a 2012 take on his own 2005 spoken word classic, Electricity Solo, during which teardrop blips built upon tense foetal beats. A love-in huddle broke the spell during Cuddle before hearts were broken when Ford levitated across the room into the arms of his wife Eleesha.

This could have been the perfect ending but the Disney moment was short-lived when Simo Soo was invited to the stage. Ford and Soo talked trash and rapped smack over each other’s songs until anarchy rained down upon them screaming, bruised and bleeding on the sticky, sweat-soaked floor boards. After the perfectly choreographed randomness it was a somewhat chaotic close to the show, but remember, “Tomás Ford loves you!”