The Concert (long, but hopefully worth it)

The Basics with various other artists
The Athenaeum Theatre
30th June 2007

The flyer invites you to join Wally, Tim and Kris as they launch their new album, Stand Out/Fit In. Launch it where, into the stratosphere? With four support bands and three support comedians they certainly put in a pretty good effort at making an impression that lasts.

First up at eight o’clock was Little Red, a five piece garage rock and roll band from Melbourne. They sang a short set of five songs, as did all the supports bands of the evening, including a very catchy and infectious ‘Coca Cola’. Lead singer Tom Hartney worked his way through the set with the sleeves of his grey suit pushed up and shirt open to his navel, but with the style of tunes, it worked well. With influences that list Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Bruce Springsteen and Shane Warne there is very little to dislike about these guys. Had the foyer announcement not warned everyone against dancing in the aisles ‘this is a theatrical performance’ I think the dancing would have started there and then.

- Little Red -

The first comedian of the night appeared to be wearing a blue velvet jacket and bow tie. Need I say more? I suppose I should. He also came out carrying an electric ukulele. Ok…I think I’ve said enough. But I will just say he had a very interesting and amusing take on the how to fix the hole in the bucket that Liza bought. His name, Oliver Clark.

- Oliver Clark -

Emma Heeney is a small woman who disappears on stage until she starts to sing. Her voice lends the songs she writes a weight that put her in firmly into the category of ‘Watch Out World’. Simple songs that burst with emotion are played by Emma on her acoustic guitar and backed up on vocals by Tess Hildebrand, bass and drums are provided by those affectionately known as the Daves (Kleynjans-drums and Rogers-bass). She came, she sang ‘No Colour Here’ and ‘Top Shelf’ amongst others and she conquered.

With the music cue stuffed up for the entrance of Andrew McClelland, he had to walk onto stage instead of his planned dangerous dancing entrance. He did reveal that despite the warning of the foyer announcer early that ‘there is no mosh pit at the Athenaeum’ he did dance in the aisle during Little Red and was asked to move on as he was a fire hazard. I though I was going to choke, he’s not a small guy. A scissor jump or two later and an extremely funny bit about The Beatles being the best and comparing the Rolling Stones to cheese he left the stage to major applause.

Then came Spargo, the second five piece from Melbourne fresh from time spent in the UK. A blend of country and blues filled the theatre and set a new, slightly more sombre tone with ‘Jack the Blacksmith’. They went on to play the more upbeat ‘Lover Man’ and ‘Sweet Terees’ before rounding off the first half of the concert ‘Goodbye Girl’.

- Spargo Lead -

The intermission of fifteen minutes saw the acts from the first half mingling with the audience and selling and signing CDs. There was a girl hanging out that was the spitting image of Paris Hilton, but quite clearly it wasn’t her ‘cause she can’t leave California for at least eighteen months.

Tokenview welcomed everyone back from the break to the rockin’ sounds of guitar and drums. The four piece band from Sydney whos age averages twenty took the stage by storm and ‘Broken China Doll’ couldn’t have sounded sweeter. ‘Beautiful Disguise’ saw lead singer Brett Clemensons biceps rippling as he plucked the strings. I’m sure there were many weak knees in the theatre apart from mine.

The final comedian of the evening was Lawrence Leung. First he attacked the Asian stereotypes of all knowing technology geeks than he starting talking about ideal chat up lines from a book called The Game. I thought I was going pee my pants and choke all at once. I haven’t laughed so much in a long time. He went on to explain why the The Sensitive and Manly Attractiveness of Colin Firth is a Myth. He did this with the aid of a PowerPoint presentation. He took screen shots and voice recordings from Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones Diary and then played them down the phone to girls looking for a flat mate. When he played the ‘Would you like to come fishing in my trout stream,’ one poor girl said ‘go away you freak’ and put the phone down. It doesn’t sound that funny written, I suppose you had to be there.

- Lawrence Leung -

Finally, The Basics took to the stage and with this being the launch for Stand Out/Fit In they played the album in order from start to finish. Kris Schroeder, suffering from a bad cold resulting in throat problems, sang his way through all the tracks he leads on despite the problems. Drummer Wally De Backer, made it to ‘Hey There!’ (song four) before having to remove his trademark grey jacket. A technical issue slowed things down at the start of ‘(Love, Love) Speak To Me’ when the wrong acoustic guitar was brought onto stage and had to be tuned on the spot, but between the three of them they made it into a opportunity to talk to the audience and Wally thanked his Dad for making the sign and the techs for putting the lights on it. The set continued with jokes about which song came next and how Dave Bramble seemed to be the only one who knew ‘cause he always appeared on stage when it was his song. Tim Heath took the bait when Kris put his arm around one of the cardboard cut out from the album cover by saying, ‘Hey, that’s my Mum’.

They didn’t get away with just playing the entire album, they played three encore songs, but ‘Hey Rain’ missed out, unlike the audience who had only paid $16-22 for the pleasure of one of the most entertaining, all round, evenings in a very long while and the certainly achieved a launch that will be remembered for a very long time.

- Finally, a halfway decent picture of Tim Heath, he moves around a lot -

- Tecnical Error -

- Kris Schroeder on Bass -

- Wally De Backer on drums -

(988 words)

PS. Go have a look at their video for Lookin' Over My Shoulder