Last night's gig at the Nash in Geelong, with Matt Joe Gow and the Dead Leaves, was so good that I thought it warranted another post - a break with the one-post-a-day tradition of this blog, and with the record, so far, of not posting on one band more than once.
I talked a bit yesterday about their debut album The Messenger and most, but not all, of the songs from that album filled the bill last night. I had forgotten what it was like to feel the floor shake with the beat of really good music - music that's good not just because it sounds good (which it certainly does) but also because it manages to somehow tell you a story without first having to sit you down on the floor, cross legged, and tell you that it's telling you a story. It just tells it.
I had forgotten, too, what it was like to see live music where the musicians really believe in what they're doing. That's something you certainly didn't get too often with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (the last gig I went to) who, even in music of the most intense, heartfelt passion, had an amazing capacity to look bored. Not Matt Joe Gow and the Dead Leaves. You knew this music was coming not just from their instruments and voices, but from something deep within them - sometimes their hearts, sometimes their guts.
Their terrific combination of acoustic and electric guitars, upright bass, and drums, all strumming and beating away at their wonderfully original mix of country and rock made for a phenomenal night before a smallish but very impressed crowd.
I've got a notoriously bad record at predicting outcomes of elections and footy matches, but I reckon I might just be backing a real winner this time when I say that I think this band has a big future.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Ian
ReplyDeleteI'm glad it was a good gig! I loved the comment about the MSO doing only covers!
I posted a comment on your review ('The many shades of blue') of Joni Mitchell's 'Blue', but it hasn't appeared. Either you disliked my comment so much that you deleted it (always a possibility), or my peculiar ability to highlight (quite unintentionally) the smallest aberration in computer communications is undiminished and the commment's disappeared somewhere - as did my first comment on your blog. I suspect that the second option is more likely, not least because I didn't keep a copy of my comment before posting it.
Hey Patrick,
ReplyDeleteNo I can assure you I didn't delete you post ... but hopefully you can take some reassurance in the knowledge that others have had some hassles posting here too. Even I've disappeared some times. I gather that Google isn't too fond of you if you try to post something before signing in, but that's the only thing I can think of. Thanks for keeping in touch and following along!