Augie March, Dan Kelly and theAlpha Males, The Seabellies @Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle(30/04/06)

Fri 5th May, 2006 in Gig Reviews

Seldom is a song such an apt description for a night, but for little over one very crowded hour at the Cambridge Hotel, Augie March front man Glenn Richards may as well have been the only one in the room. On the back of their magnificent single “One Crowded Hour” (not to mention many years of hard work) Augie’s latest opus Moo, You Bloody Choir has found a place in that most, cough, hallowed of places: the Aria top ten. And by the sold-out signs plastered around Newcastle’s ticket distributors, wouldn’t you just know it.

Despite the teeming masses, Richards, in his own imperfect yet affable way, placed the spotlight squarely on himself and his band’s unique music. Yes, there were two support bands – the good-times, but slightly underwhelming pub-rock of Dan Kelly and Alpha Males, and the inventive yet developing locals the Seabellies, whose scope is a little Arcade Fire, a little Jeff Buckley – but tonight only really belonged to Shepparton’s finest.

One couldn’t be disappointed. Regardless of hilariously serious calls to “play it louder” Augie March did what they do best – break your heart and play with your fragile emotions – with some witty banter thrown in for good measure. Kicking off with a rollicking rendition of ‘The Cold Acre’, their shortened set (as a result of a curfew apparently) focussed heavily on material from the new album. Surprisingly ‘One Crowded Hour’ was thrown in next and was accompanied by a bloodthirsty choir, obviously unaffected by the bolt from the blue that was the early appearance of Augie March’s “hit”. Rounding off a thrilling introduction was ‘Just Passing Through’ which saw the band bring the rock, so to speak, with Richard’s gentle chirrup transformed into a vitriolic howl. As the song came to a crashing halt, the audience were breathlessly informed that they had just experienced the fastest song the band had ever played and Richards exercised his power by leading them in a chant of “Dave, why did you play it so fast?” aimed at drummer Dave Williams. Cue general elation.

Although his voice failed a couple of times throughout, and he even forgot a few lines here and there Richards kept the crowd guessing: there was an almost-silent room for the almost-solo ‘Bottle Baby’ (yes, for some it was too quiet), while old favourite ‘This Train is Taking No Passengers’ almost derailed the largely static audience into a swaying, nodding, and tap-footing frenzy. Like Augie March on record, it was all too easy to get pulled in by the vivid imagery portrayed in songs like ‘This Train…’ and ‘Thin Captain Crackers’ even if you only related them from memory, as the sight of many moving mouths in the dark demonstrated. This was also attested to by the guy who, afterwards, hailed a taxi with a single holler of “train!”

Music does indeed do strange things to people. While the show ended with Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males joining the band on-stage for a swaggering cover of Neil Young’s ‘Don’t Cry No Tears’ (it could be argued music does strange things to the musicians too), the emotional high-point had come the song previous. As the opening plucking of ‘There is No Such Place’ echoed around the room, it became apparent that it was that time of night for you to take in your arms that special one and, well, you know the rest. Taking into account a packed room and a top-ten album, that’s a lot of “our song” to put up with. It is testament to the live performance of Augie March that there are few such places that you can feel so intimate with so many people.