Venue:
Enmore Theatre
Date: 23/06/2017
So, off to the Enmore to see Icehouse. I had hopes given a longstanding love of their albums, saw them back in the 80s, and I was warm to the idea of a hits package. It seemed like a good idea, that they would have been well oiled from a series of dates earlier through the year. And yet, it was a huge disappointment.
Iva and Paul are very obviously the old stagers to pass muster for calling it Icehouse, just with the sound of a very competent tribute band / pub covers band behind them. That said, Iva could presumably turn up with anyone and call himself Icehouse. I couldn’t fault them technically as musicians, but it took me about 3 or 4 numbers to realise my main issue – they were playing them too fast, like they had to get through too much material before curfew. The drummer was good technically, even the joke drum solo was tolerably short. But every song was metronomic, right on the beat with none of the swing in the original tracks (at least how I hear them).
Then there were the high notes…that Iva isn’t going to be doing tonight or any more apparently, so he’ll sing the main lyric with his unmistakable tones, right up to the line he can’t hit any more, and it’s over to the backup guy. That was a shock. And back to Iva for the verse. Later on, there was a whole of “Man Of Colours” that Iva didn’t bother to sing on at all. I’ve seen and heard singers struggle, or accommodate, or Ian Gillan, but this was really jarring.
The whole thing was so painfully off that I walked out during Great Southern Land. And I still want that to be the new national anthem.
The audience:
Median age in the upper 50s with some kids in tow.
It made me think..
Careful what you wish for. I’ve been in a funk all the next day.
Thanks for the review HH. Saw him a couple of years ago, more by accident – he happened to be on the list at a regional music day. Struck me as not taking it too seriously which can be a good thing or a bad thing.
Shows what I know…i.e. not much. Seems that it is just Iva and none of the original band. Everyone else has been acquired 1986 onwards, mostly 90’s and noughties including a Voice Australia contestant providing the high vocal parts and redundant muscles, much like Tina Turner’s sax player circa Private Dancer.
I remember them. They were bottom of the bill support to Bowie at Murrayfield on the Serious Moonlight tour. God, they were dull – even the Thompson Twits were more interesting.
I was at that gig too!
Clearly Bowie didn’t think so, having put them on as support. Davies has done some quite interesting soundtrack stuff for theatre and dance companies.
I was surprised at the extent of his collaborations.
From Wiki: Davies has worked with such notable musicians as David Bowie, Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Bryan Ferry, Roxy Music, Steve Jansen, Yukihiro Takahashi, John Oates, Elvis Costello, Simple Minds, Peter Tosh, Robert Palmer, XTC, the Psychedelic Furs and Nik Kershaw.
A friend of mine who circulates in a lot of behind-the-scenes scenarios told me that back in the day – when Icehouse were regulars in the charts – whenever he came across Iva, he’d get the “I’m a real musician for Christ’s sake, I’ll be glad when this pop rubbish is done with so that I can get on with proper music” line from him.
One can only presume that didn’t work out, as the public face of Mr Davies these days is “I’ve always loved this stuff”…
I saw them at the Lyceum in London in the very early eighties.
I thought they were OK but my memory is tempered by the fact that the Lyceum served up warm Tuborg lager which was quite revolting !
Cripes, the drinks available at gigs is almost a thread in itself. My most frequent venue these days seems to be the Institute in Digbeth, Birmingham, but I am soooo weary of their shitey expensive lager or cider “choices” as to deliberately start going in by car rather than train, having neither rhyme or reason to then partake.