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Even Spiegeltent, Thurs 2 March The sixteen-year-old inside me flinched as the thought of Bernard Fanning's recent Triple J victory flew across my memory. Think here of two roughly contemporaneous Australian bands, who provided much of the soundtrack to my high school years: Powderfinger and Even. Powderfinger play sell-out stadium shows, sell piles of records, and their lead singer can distribute laser imprints of his excrement to the delight of a national audience. Despite their age and their lapse into tired mediocrity, Powderfinger get bigger and bigger. Yet Even, another band whose members have survived the heady days of their twenties intact, is consigned to playing 'concerts' to a small, appreciative and ageing audience, seated in a circus tent designed by local scientists to create a microcosmic environment proving the existence of global warming. And when Even pull out songs from their forthcoming album (due sometime this year), they don't get bigger - they just get better. Yes, as always, Even's show was more about nostalgia and musical showmanship than youthful exuberance (although they still have that in spades). They played Black Umbrella. They played a medley of impromptu covers, all in the key of A, in the middle of Rock And Roll Save My Life (including Daddy Cool's Come Back Again and John Lennon's (Just Like) Starting Over). Ash Naylor's guitar work makes him this country's greatest unsung guitar hero. But it feels as though they've had their time, and that's bollocks. They're radio friendly, they're hard-working, they have a wealth of amazing, classic material. Can somebody please make Even famous? Please?  |
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