It never rains but it pours. We regularly complain about Adelaide being gig-starved and here we are on a Saturday night wondering whether to go see The Whitlams, Howling Bells, The Living End/End of Fashion/Red Riders or more.

I’m going out on a limb here to say that I think the Fowler’s Live crowd may have made the best call on the night 

Local Adelaide band No Through Road had the tough job of kicking the night off and you have to root for a band that has to call its audience in from the bar to an empty stagefront. From the first chords of ‘Sucked in Matt’, you sensed that this night was going to be special. Matt Banham writes great quirky songs that sound sugar-sweet one minute only to reveal fish-hooks the next. All bands have their influences, and No Through Road’s seem impeccable - touch of The Velvets, a dash of Joy Division but with the added magic ingredient, the ability not to take yourself too seriously. I mean c’mon, this band did a cover of Van Halen’s ‘Jump’!  ‘Die for Something’, the new single was a real highlight as was the blistering finale ‘Helicopter#2’.

Jack Ladder was a complete surprise to me.  As he stood there on stage looking like a cherubic Walker Brother in one of John Cooper-Clarke’s old suits you knew immediately that this as not going to be your average ‘singer-songwriter’ set. Jack Ladder brings a whole new dimension to ‘laid back’. I have to admit that for the first few songs my impression was that this was John Hammond on Mogadon. Jack is the only guitarist I’ve seen who seems to use the Therapeutic Touch technique in playing. His fingers don’t so much strum and pick as insinuate to the strings. But does it work? Damn it does! Jack Ladder has a rich sonorous voice steeped in Tim Hardin, Tim Rose, Leonard Cohen, Scott Walker and others of that deep ilk and has songs on first hearing demanded revisiting. I wouldn’t call Jack Ladder ‘immediate’ but maybe that’s what made his set so compelling. You really wanted to get a hold of his new CD Not Worth Waiting For to hear these songs again and again.

Okkervil River are the band that will make you forgive Texas for George Bush. Fronted by the preternaturally gifted Will Sheff, they powered through one of the most mesmerisingly beautiful sets that Adelaide has heard in a long time.  Alt-Country? – No chance.  Alt-Emo? – maybe. Alt-to musical banality, tedium and vacuity? – Absolutely! Sheff has that made-in-heaven combination of a plaintive, soaring voice that could cause a glass eye to mist over and songs that have the intelligence and emotional range and depth to merit such electrifying treatment.

But this band is no one-trick pony and what allowed Sheff to soar was having a ‘back four’ as strong as the Adelaide Crows’. Brian Cassidy’s guitar and mandolin added lift and layers while Travis Nelsen on drums and Patrick Pestorius know just the light and shade needed for Sheffs miniature epics of life and love. A special mention however goes to Scott Brackett, who from backstage produced nostalgic echoes of Farfisa organs and peels of trumpet that could have graced an Ennio Morricone soundtrack.

Singling out songs in such a stellar set seems pointless but I have a feeling that the reviewers who felt that the title track of their latest album, Black Sheep Boy was a bit pedestrian would be trampling over each other to find superlatives for the extended workout version that the song got tonight. Icing on the cake for the crowd who stomped and yelled for repeated encores was the big fan favourite: ‘Happy Hearts’, which is exactly what everyone at Fowlers that night would have gone home with.

Okkervil River Photo Gallery