The Church @ the Corner Hotel
Dec. 20th, 2003 04:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sharplittleteethWe saw the Church play at the Corner Hotel last night.
I'm probably not the best person to write this review. I don't really know much Church, except the obvious radio hits. Bear that in mind.
Support acts:
Gersey played slow, sad indie-pop. Acceptable, without being anything special. Except for the last song, which built to a beautiful wall of 6/8 noise. And their drummer had Jeff Beck's haircut.
The Morning After Girls dressed like Interpol, sounded like 60's garage psychedelia. But they had a Rickenbacker bass and two Gibson semi-hollow bodies, so they gave good guitar porn.
The Church started around 11, and played for nearly two hours.
It felt much, much longer.
Steve Kilbey may be an enigmatic musical genius, but he's a pretty boring frontman. Even his Lemmy-style sideburns and moustache couldn't save him.
Worse, his voice can't really hold a tune.
Which was the biggest problem of the night. The band are all excellent musicians, but the songs blurred together because the vocals were too soft and too monotone to provide any definition.
The only time Kilbey got any real passion into his voice was when he threatened to bash a punter with his bass for shouting out requests during the sensitive moments.
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andricongirl has seen the Church do an acoustic gig, and said it was really good. I'd like to see that. Kilbey's voice would work better if it didn't have to fight electric guitars.
Then again, two hours is a long time to spend watching a band you don't really know play songs you've never heard before. This may have dampened my enthusiasm. The two songs I did know - 'Reptiles' and 'Under the Milky Way' stood out because I could mentally edit out the lacklustre live vocals, and dub in the melody I knew should be there.
Presumably, this is what the rest of the aging rocker audience were doing. They clapped, and danced, and yelled out stupid things that the band did their best to ignore. They also smoked a lot of pot, judging be the smell wafting through the press of bodies.
Maybe that's why they enjoyed the show so much.
So... a gig for the Church faithful, perhaps, rather than one to convert ignorant heathens like me.
You didn't really expect me to write a Church review without at least one really bad cliche like that, did you?
P.S.
Having just looked at photos on the band's website, I now realize Steve Kilbey did NOT in fact sport Lemmy-style sideburns and moustache, but rather a standard beard that has gone grey underneath.
The gig is now officially ruined for me.
I'm probably not the best person to write this review. I don't really know much Church, except the obvious radio hits. Bear that in mind.
Support acts:
Gersey played slow, sad indie-pop. Acceptable, without being anything special. Except for the last song, which built to a beautiful wall of 6/8 noise. And their drummer had Jeff Beck's haircut.
The Morning After Girls dressed like Interpol, sounded like 60's garage psychedelia. But they had a Rickenbacker bass and two Gibson semi-hollow bodies, so they gave good guitar porn.
The Church started around 11, and played for nearly two hours.
It felt much, much longer.
Steve Kilbey may be an enigmatic musical genius, but he's a pretty boring frontman. Even his Lemmy-style sideburns and moustache couldn't save him.
Worse, his voice can't really hold a tune.
Which was the biggest problem of the night. The band are all excellent musicians, but the songs blurred together because the vocals were too soft and too monotone to provide any definition.
The only time Kilbey got any real passion into his voice was when he threatened to bash a punter with his bass for shouting out requests during the sensitive moments.
andricongirl has seen the Church do an acoustic gig, and said it was really good. I'd like to see that. Kilbey's voice would work better if it didn't have to fight electric guitars.Then again, two hours is a long time to spend watching a band you don't really know play songs you've never heard before. This may have dampened my enthusiasm. The two songs I did know - 'Reptiles' and 'Under the Milky Way' stood out because I could mentally edit out the lacklustre live vocals, and dub in the melody I knew should be there.
Presumably, this is what the rest of the aging rocker audience were doing. They clapped, and danced, and yelled out stupid things that the band did their best to ignore. They also smoked a lot of pot, judging be the smell wafting through the press of bodies.
Maybe that's why they enjoyed the show so much.
So... a gig for the Church faithful, perhaps, rather than one to convert ignorant heathens like me.
You didn't really expect me to write a Church review without at least one really bad cliche like that, did you?
P.S.
Having just looked at photos on the band's website, I now realize Steve Kilbey did NOT in fact sport Lemmy-style sideburns and moustache, but rather a standard beard that has gone grey underneath.
The gig is now officially ruined for me.
