Close to Forever

Venue:

The Great Club, Marrickville, Sydney

Date: 16/10/2022

The last gig I attended in 2020 before Covid really started to hit was Close to Forever at the 505 club in Sydney’s Newtown, and 2 1/2 years later we have the launch for their album Hearts and Desires released in November last year.

Close to Forever are a Sydney-based band made up of Dale Caldwell (vocals), Ben Fink (Guitars and vocals), Peter Hollo (Cello), Sam Golding (various horms), Danny Heifetz (Drums) and Chris Abrahams (piano and keyboard). A line up with a collectively impressive CV.

The set comprised the album and some well chosen covers from Elvis Costello (15 Petals), PJ Harvey (Down by the Water), Don McGlashan (White Valiant), Tim Buckley (Song to the Siren), and Billie Holiday (Strange Fruit).

A few songs in we find out that this is the first time the band have all played in the same room together for a very long time, rehearsals being via Zoom. As someone in the crown pointed out, if they hadn’t mentioned it, we wouldn’t have known. This is a band that has that collective telepathy that can make a performance special. Ben and Dale act as bandleaders, introducing each song and sharing stories of how the songs came to be. Ben directs the band while squirming around in his chair, sharing vocals and with fingers pulling shapes over a variety of guitars (and there’s a fair few guitars). With and nod and wink each member of the band is given opportunities to flex and tweak the songs, making for some interesting excursions (collectively they’ve got a lot of improvisation experience under their belt).

A hard band to pigeonhole (AW t-shirt right there?), their Bandcamp tags include alternative, indie and anti-folk (no I don’t know what that is either), but you could add folk, roots, jazzy, and number of other genres (real or made up). A highly recommended album, looking forward to hearing more from them.

https://closetoforever1.bandcamp.com/album/hearts-and-desire

The audience:

Lots of friends and family there to support them along with a variety of inner west music lovers.

It made me think..

The album was crowdfunded through Pozible back in 2018, and through blood sweat and frustration it’s come out. From the long list of people they thanked, it takes a lot of support both inside and outside the music industry to get music out to the masses.

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