Venue:
Thornbury Theatre, Melbourne, Australi
Date: 14/01/2022
Kilb’s is about to embark on a tour of America and then, presumably, to a venue near you , so I figured that I should do a review albeit a while ago.
This was a twice deferred tour due to the plague and when the go button was finally pressed omicron had hit town. So there was a general air of apprehension, it was a hot summer’s evening and the streets were bare. The venue was an old theatre,then a greek function centre and last time I had been there we sat at tables. This time there were rows of seats.
Given the omicron thing I reckon about 30% were no shows which meant after interval we upgraded ourselves to dead middle second row, about 10 feet from Kilbey.
So Kilbey fronting a Church covers band. How did it go? Pretty damn good though I reckon, despite the Rickenbacker 12 string he underplays the jingle jangle of Marty Wilson Pipers signature sound- to the detriment of the songs.
He announced the band members and the bands they had been in as if to reinforce the fact that no one had heard of any of them.
He seemed in good spirits and well oiled for this the second of 2 shows. Seemingly v appreciative that we had defied omicron and turned up, he had some some amusing anecdotes ,particularly the one about petulantly refusing to play their mega hit Ungarded Moment then being forced back on stage by their manager to appease the punters.
One thing I noticed is that his voice, never particularly penetrating, has even more of a soft burr to it and makes it quite hard to pick out the lyrics even when you are getting stage monitor sound and know the songs. I reckon he could do with more vocal support.
For me the highlights were the encores – Myrryh and Is This Where You Live.
A promo for a Perth show listed these songs so I guess this was the set list.
She Never Said
The Unguarded Moment
Too Fast for You
Tear It All Away
Almost With You
When You Were Mine
It’s No Reason
Electric Lash
Constant in Opal
Already Yesterday
Tantalized
Columbus
Under the Milky Way
Reptile
Destination
Metropolis
You’re Still Beautiful
Ripple
The audience:
Who was that masked man?
It made me think..
How much I enjoy listening to and watching lead vocalist / bassists. Such interesting bass lines.
From a different gig, they sounded better at mine, but you get the idea.
Fun fact – Steve’s fathered two pairs of identical female twins, from different mothers.
Ploog wasn’t the greatest drummer but that guy is awful. Just play it like the record!
Funny thing i think that guy just had a knee op and has been replaced for the US tour.
Tim Powles is the current drummer of the Church who is having the Op. Not sure if that’s him in the video as haven’t been able to watch it but he’s highly regarded these days by the fans.
And yes HP knows the score on the new album but isn’t playing ball….
How many different mothers?
This is where it gets interesting. Steve claims sixteen, but only nine have admitted motherhood. One is T.V.’s Judith Chalmers.
That is called doubling down.
As coincidence has it SK just linked to this retrospective review of Priest – Aura
https://www.popmatters.com/the-church-priest-aura-atr30
That’s a damn good review.
It is, isn’t it? Right on the money.
Reread this. Kilbey wasnt actually fronting a Church covers band. It was his band but they were just playing Church stuff.
Capisce?
When he played here a couple of years ago, it was as a duo with keyboardist Amanda Kramer.
I thought he was a bit sloppy – jetlagged, apparently, but the clouds of green smoke coming from backstage all afternoon can’t have helped sharpen his act.
Amanda, a teetotal ex-junkie, was ace, and did a lot of the heavy lifting. And she was fantastic company in the hours between soundcheck and doors.
He can be slack. After lockdown and twice deferred tour they seemed pretty happy to play.
@junior-wells
Did you not ask him when the Church are coming back to England and when the new album will finally be put…ta!
Had my mask on. HP may have the inside word.
I don’t know. If I asked him about the band it would be like asking him about work. We talk about painting, any old shit. But not The Church. They ceased to be a band in the sense of a bunch of mates who hung out together many, many years ago. It’s a few individuals who get together in a studio every few years, and maybe do some gigs. The last time we talked about music I said that their democratic way of writing songs (basically working them up out of studio jams) resulted in an anonymous sameness. Kilbey’s melodic muse hasn’t left him, but he’s not the boss of the band.
Seemed like it when I saw them. They were hired guns.
Though you may be talking about The Church v Kilbey’band. Do the The Church even exist in any form?
Yes they do. They played a show last night and have a new album coming out, Hypnogogue
Hard to keep track of Herr Kilbey.
He also did a series of solo chat and strum gigs recently.
Guess you’ve got to be agile these days.
Good to see James May on guitar there.
That’s how I see it. There’s the Church, and Steve Kilbey’s band. Who play Church songs.