The Killers

With Amy Shark, Something For Kate, Oscar The Wild, Bermuda Bay. VALO After Race Concert. 4 Dec 2022

 

In a strange kind of way this was a concert for the antiheroes, quite different to the Noiseworks/Jimmy Barnes fare of the previous evening. Sure, Amy Shark nods her coifed head in the direction of pop stardom (she’s a multiple ARIA award winner, after all) but the same charge cannot be levelled at Something For Kate’s Paul Dempsey.

 

With Something For Kate onstage you know you’re in for a cerebral experience, and it was a surprise to see Dempsey joking with the crowd whilst waiting for a fix and attempting not to be electrocuted by his microphone when a technical malfunction derailed the first three songs. With bass guitarist Stephanie Ashworth and drummer Clint Hyndman and Adrian Stoyles as second guitarist they power through a set stretching back nearly 30 years. Age must be a relative concept, since the crowd were no spring chickens, leavened by a smattering of younger punters.

 

Monsters and 2020s Situation Room made an appearance in what seems a short set, and they finished with Captain (Million Miles An Hour), which dates back to 1997. Oh shock, a twenty five year old song which sounds as fresh as the day it was penned, sung by a singer who although bearded, sounded much as he did those twenty five years ago. Ashworth, barefoot, whirled around the stage and Hyndman hunches behind his kit, driving the songs behind Dempsey’s sometimes tortured delivery, as he always does.

 

Earlier, the Music SA’s ‘Bands On Track’ local performers Oscar The Wild and Bermuda Bay had graced the stage. It’s a great initiative from Music SA, giving incredible experience to up-and-comers, invaluable if the live music industry is going to be rebuilt after the ravages of the past three years.

 

Amy Shark opens her set with Everybody Cries… “We haven’t played a festival like this for a long time. I’m feeling the love up here” she tells the crowd, working hard to make a connection, whether it’s the black and white checkered flag pattern top she’s wearing, or her professed love for Adelaide. The crowd warm to her immediately, so by the time she straps on a Gretsch guitar for The Idiot (about a former partner) the swelling crowd is with her.

 

The follow up song, Miss You, sees Shark channelling her inner Sheryl Crow, there is syncopation to the vocal delivery which is matched by the band with metronomic precision. The song finishes with a short drum arrangement from Joe Malafu which backs up her later claim that he’s the best in Australia, rolling a succession of triplets around the kit. Shark takes charge during the very apt Psycho; seeing a disturbance in front of the stage she instructs security “Kick him out! We don’t want any fights!” and just as quickly is back into the groove of the song.

 

As the parkland bats wheel and describe their flight patterns in the deepening dusk she gives us two of the best to finish: new song Only Wanna Be With You is a number which builds to a towering crescendo, and then she tops it with I Said Hi.

 

With The Killers it begins with a projection of Michelangelo’s David on the screen; a preamble to the strutting and cocky rock pastiche, The Man.

 

“Them other boys, I don't give a damn // They kiss on the ring, I carry the crown” sings Brandon Flowers as he begins working the crowd. The Killers have been around just short of 20 years; it’s extraordinary how capable and assured Flowers is, let alone the rest of the band. Actually, no, they show just what a wonderful showbiz rock band they are, with a set list of gems and a front-man who seems to love his role and the adulation. As a result The Killers are all class, but it is in the bottom end, where drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr provides the propulsion, that the band really shine.

 

Vannucci has a commanding presence, both on the video screen and through the music. He commands in the same way that Max Weinberg and Clarence Clemons patrolled the E-Street stage and allowed Bruce Springsteen to do what he does best. Tonight’s performance from The Killers reminds me of the classic 1985 Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band Australian Tour.

 

As drummers they are not alike: Weinberg was subtle and nuanced, with Vannucci every hit is a measured show of force, yet their authority over the stage is the same.

 

And there’s yet another connection: The Killers performed three songs with ‘The Boss’ at Madison Square Gardens in New York City just earlier this year.

 

Think I’m overstating the case? Sing me one – just one – dominant guitar line in a Killers song. Guitarist Dave Keuning with his Ibanez Destroyer is not a guitarist who supplies riffs in the classic sense, and The Killers do not record songs with a big hook in the classic sense. There’s no saxophone as there is in the E-Street Band, that is true, but listen to the sonic build of keyboards and bass guitar, and the three guitar cacophony of Shot At The Night. These songs are based on the simple melody of a synth, or the turn of a phrase. These are songlines, stories being played out with Brandon Flowers not only as showman, but as a character observing and narrating the story. He is some kind of genius in his ability to utilise the lyrics of ‘pop’ songs as powerful expressive vehicles.

 

Somebody Told Me, Spaceman, and Smile Like You Mean It are all fine examples, the next three songs from tonight’s set list. Simple rock n roll? Hardly. This concert was the full experience, from strobing lights to sky candy (streamers) and images and visual backdrops, gorgeous lighting effects and close up camera shots throughout. Six key band members onstage and another three backing vocalists, a rich textural adventure.

 

Shot At The Night comes and goes; surely this is one of those bands who have a full set list (‘Every one’s a winner, baby/that’s the truth’), and then Read My Mind makes an appearance, Flowers leans back, says to the 10-12,000 strong crowd “You’re gonna make me work for this, aren’t you?” before intoning the opening lines “I’m on the corner of Main St, just trying to keep it in line”.

 

All These Things That I’ve Done brings on the narrative where Flowers delivers, not as an old soldier, but prowling the stage like an old huckster, an old Bible thumping fire and brimstone preacher, exhorting – demanding the crowd follow his lead!! It’s never over the top but he knows how to work the crowd over, how to make them see things his way.

 

When You Were Young follows, then [Are We] Human and all too implausibly soon, Mr Brightside. This is a song which the entire crowd knows, and it appreciably lifts the fervour to a new level in the crowd singalong stakes. There is no fanfare and no encore. A thumpingly short coda from Vannucci is the final goodbye and then it’s all over. They came, they saw, they kicked its butt. It is fitting.

 

Alex Wheaton

 

When: Closed

Where: Adelaide 500

Bookings: Closed

East Meets West

Orchestral Concert. Ausfeng. Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Adelaide Town Hall. 17 Nov 2022

 

The East Meets West Orchestral Concert is an initiative of the China Arts and Entertainment Group and aims to promote mutual friendship and foster cultural ties between China and western countries. The concert was postponed several times due to the pandemic but tonight finally graced the Adelaide Town Hall stage to a capacity audience.

 

The generously sized program featured music largely written in the western tradition but infused with influences from the east. Half of the program was written by western composers (Puccini, Bizet, and Prokofiev), and the other half by Chinese composers and arrangers (Wang Liping, Wang Fan, Liang Zhao, He Zhanhao, Chen Gang, Zheng Qiufeng, Yin Cherngzong, Chu Wanghua, Liu Zhuang, and Sheng Lihong).

 

Under the baton of Guy Noble, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra played the diverse program with much gusto, and the audience was treated to two major works – The Yellow River Piano Concerto, and The Butterfly Lovers’ Violin Concerto, as well as excerpts from Puccini’s Turandot and La Bohème, Bizet’s Carmen, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet Suite, and an orchestral piece featuring Guzheng – a Chinese instrument – and several Chinese language songs.

 

The concert began with Jasmine Flowers from Turandot. It features every section of the orchestra and had the audience buzzing from the start. Noble encouraged the orchestra to play at full voice and at a pace that was marginally too brisk. The Chinese composition Hope Betrayed from the 2010 Chinese TV series The Dream of Red Mansions featured the Guzheng, played by virtuoso Zhao Liang, and vocals by mezzo soprano Victoria Lambourn (who was amplified). Its distinctly oriental sound palette fused beautifully with the score for a standard western orchestra. Liang was dressed in a Mandarin gown and Lambourn in a rich ball gown, and the true spirit of fusion of cultural styles was unleashed. (Members of the audience were impressed that Lambourn sang in Chinese).

 

Lambourn also sang (without amplification) L’amour Est Un Oiseau Rebelle from Carmen. Her voice is beautifully rounded with a pleasing vibrato, and she was able to soar above the orchestra, which Noble allowed to play at something approaching full power. Lambourn took the aria at a moderate tempo and her French articulation was superb.

 

Violinist Amanda Chen performed the Butterfly Lovers’ Violin Concerto with great style. The single-movement composition traverses a range of styles over its seven distinct sections. From the first introduction on harp and flute, with hints of the pentatonic scale played on the violin, the first section has a rural feel to it, almost in the style of Copland. Chen’s rapid double stopping and spiccato was impressive, and her dialogue with the cello in the lagrimoso section was sublimely lyrical. The final melodic phrase on the violin was barely perceptible as it gently disappeared into the heights of the auditorium.

 

The second half of the program began with the iconic Montagues and the Capulets from the Romeo and Juliet Suite. Its theme of doomed love echoed the violin concerto, and prefaced the romantic sadness inherent in Si Mi Chiamo Mimi from La Bohème that followed. Soprano Cathy-Di Zhang sang with much passion, and her performance was the highlight of the concert. Her purity of tone and ability to tell a story had the audience spellbound, as did her rendition of Pamir, My Beautiful Hometown, although Noble again allowed the orchestra to almost dominate her.

 

The evening finished with the famous Yellow River Piano Concerto played by the uber talented Tony Lee – an award winner at the 2016 Sydney International Piano Competition. Lee has exceptional forearm strength that allows him to produce fortissimo sounds that are passionate and commanding without being merely loud and harsh. The composition is eclectic and does not follow the standard structure of a western-style concerto, and Lee commanded the diverse styles inherent in the piece. An impressive performance.

 

It is often said that music is a universal language that speaks across diverse cultures, and tonight’s concert was a perfect example.

 

Kym Clayton

 

When: Closed

Where: Adelaide Town Hall

Bookings: Closed

Signum Saxophone Quartet & Kristian Winther

Musica Viva. Adelaide Town Hall. 10 Nov 2022

 

The acclaimed Germany-based Signum Saxophone Quartet is making its debut tour of Australia, and their playing and artistry is revelatory.

 

The quartet comprises Blaž Kemperle (playing soprano saxophone), Jacopo Taddei (alto), who is replacing Hayrapet Arakelyan on this tour, Alan Lužar (tenor), and Guerino Bellarosa (baritone). It is rare to see and hear classical saxophone on an Australian concert stage, let alone four of them. (Perhaps the last such concert in Adelaide was by Australian virtuoso saxophonist Amy Dickson with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra back in 2018?)

 

Tonight’s concert in the Adelaide Town Hall was enthusiastically received by the modestly-sized audience, and they likely didn’t really know what they were in for. This reviewer certainly wasn’t! What we got was a diverse program that included JS Bach’s Italian Concerto, Kurt Weill’s seldom-heard Concerto for Violin and Wind Orchestra, Gershwin’s Three Preludes, Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances (from West Side Story), and Chick Corea’s Spain. All pieces were of course arrangements for saxophone quartet, with violin in the Weill.

 

Notably, the Weill concerto was arranged by well-respected Australian composer Jessica Wells as part of the Hildegard Project, which is an Australian initiative that advocates women composers. (Wells has orchestrated over seventy films, written chamber operas and underscores for plays, and …. the theme for ABC TV’s Q&A program!)

 

The concert began with Bach’s ever popular Italian Concerto, BWV971, which has been much arranged for other instruments. Originally written for a two-manual harpsichord, and nowadays mostly heard on piano, it is a three movement work in which Bach imitated the style of contrasting different instruments found in an ensemble. Tonight’s arrangement by Japanese saxophone virtuoso Katsuki Tochio captures Bach’s intent, especially in the allegro and andante movements, with stunning articulation, phrasing and dynamic control by the baritone and soprano saxophones. The presto movement is arguably the least successful arrangement, with individual voicing at times overemphasising the contrapuntal nature of the piece.

 

Kurt Weill is best known for his score of Threepenny Opera written by Bertolt Brecht, which includes the hit song Mack the Knife. He also wrote other satirical musicals for Broadway, such as The Seven Deadly Sins, and other iconic songs, such as Surabaya Jonny that is a favourite of various chanteuses (recently sung by Meow Meow in her Adelaide Cabaret Festival show Pandemonium). Weill’s violin concerto is altogether of a different ilk. Originally scored for violin and wind ensemble with percussion, it is a difficult composition to grapple with, at least on a first listening. It is largely atonal, punchy and percussive, and melody is excitingly elusive. Australian violinist Kristian Winther played the violin, with masterful displays of double stopping and deft bowing to produce diaphanous shimmering sounds in the serenata. The tussle between soloist and orchestra that is usually evident in a concerto was discernible in the final movement, but the saxophones never overshadowed the violin. The audience loved it.

 

The second half of the program contrasted compositions of Gershwin, Bernstein and Corea, and appealed to what we all instinctively think of as the ‘right type’ of music for saxophone. The arrangements, with some by ‘the Signums’ themselves (is that an acceptable abbreviation?) are superb. Gershwin’s Preludes were written for solo piano, and are strongly jazz infused requiring articulation and precision but with an extemporised ‘feel’. The Signum’s provided all of that in spade loads. The moodiness and sultriness of the andante prelude was just sublime.

 

Sylvain Dedenon’s arrangement of Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances are first rate, and this evening’s performance was a standout. So good are the arrangements, and so accomplished is the playing by the Signums, that one could believe there were many more instruments on stage. For example, in Tonight, Kemperle on soprano saxophone produced sounds that were uncannily like a flute that captured the yearning nature of the song. The tempo in America was spirited and relentless, and the Signum’s demonstrated exquisite breath control and crystalline articulation. I Feel Pretty exuded coquettishness. Somewhere began with an evocative alto start, but the arrangement seems busier and more complex than needed, at least initially.

 

The concert finished off with an exciting arrangement of Chick Corea’s Spain, which begins with substantial quotations from Concerto de Aranjuez by the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo before it metamorphoses into something that is more Latin infused. It finishes with an exuberant upbeat that seemingly asks a question begging to be answered, but isn’t except by the exuberant applause and whistling from a highly appreciative audience.

 

Again, Musica Viva has pulled another musical rabbit out of the bag. Superb programming!

 

Kym Clayton

 

When: Closed in Adelaide

Where: Adelaide Town Hall

Bookings: musicaviva.com.au - Performances available in other states 

Avi Avital & Konstantin Shamray

Musica Vivia. Adelaide Town Hall. 6 Oct 2022

 

Israeli virtuoso mandolinist Avi Avital is no stranger to our shores – he has wowed Australian audiences on other occasions with his luminous musicality. On this occasion Musica Viva was to tour him with renowned Italian composer and cellist Giovanni Sollima, but sadly the ever present COVID menace put those plans to the sword, with Sollima unfortunately contracting the virus and therefore unable to travel.

 

However, Adelaide-based pianist Konstantin Shamray (or ‘Saint’ Konstantin, as Avital affectionately quipped from the podium) stepped in at relatively short notice and worked with Avital to prepare a new program for the tour. Our political and civic leaders talk about the need for us to be increasingly agile and flexible in these troubled times, and it seems our artists should be no exception. Avital and Shamray are clear examples of that, thank goodness!

 

The program planned with Sollima clearly had to change – it was never a case of the piano merely replacing the cello. This reviewer has not heard duets for cello and mandolin ever before, but Vivaldi’s Concerto for Mandolin, Strings and Basso Continuo in C Major RV425 perhaps gives a clue about how cello/mandolin duets might sound. The modern grand piano has the potential to overwhelm the delicate sound of the mandolin, but in the ever capable and supremely musical hands of Shamray, this did not occur.

 

At the start of the seventy-minute non-stop concert, Avital and Shamray assuredly take to the stage and no sooner are they seated than a brisk nod from Shamray launches them into an arrangement of Romanian Folk dances by Béla Bartók. Shamray extracts light bell-like tones from the piano, and Avital plays with lightness and purity of tone as he weaves through the varying textures and rhythms.

 

The collection of dances demonstrate the potential for collaboration between the piano and mandolin, and this potential is tested by an arrangement of Mozart’s Violin Sonata No. 21 in E Minor, K.304. This piece is well known and the combination of violin and piano works well, but the substitution of the mandolin for the violin often seems to deprive the piece of its gentle-heartedness and melancholy. Shamray compensates for this potential deficit with a delightful gentleness in his touch where necessary and allows Avital to become the focus of attention when required. The piece finishes with a strong flourish from both instruments and the audience loves it.

 

The Mozart is followed by the first of two solo brackets from Avital, in which he performs a work by Sollima himself. It allows Avital to demonstrate aspects of his virtuosity with simultaneous pizzicato of the double strings with the left hand and playing a form of ponticello with the right. Later in the program Avital plays a most interesting piece written in 15/16 meter (“almost 4/4” he again quips!) which is frenetic and has an irresistible momentum that keeps the audience pushing forward in their seats. It finishes with an almost nonchalant strum and the audience erupts in exuberant applause and wolf whistles!

 

Avital and Shamray’s performance of Manuel de Falla’s popular Seven Spanish Songs is interesting. It is not entirely clear whether the vocal line is simply taken over by the mandolin with the piano accompaniment played ‘as written’, or whether the arrangement is somewhat more ambitions and includes the two instruments sharing the vocal and accompaniment roles. Whatever the case, the result is infectious. Some of the songs more obviously evoke Spanishness, such as the third– Asturiana – in which Avital produces the most evocative and beautiful yearning melodies. In the last song – Polo – the almost violent strumming of the mandolin is contrasted with the close interweaving of Shamray’s hands on the keyboard as he essays incredibly dense chords.

 

The concert concludes with three Israeli dance tunes that provide a final demonstration that the unusual pairing of mandolin and piano can produce musical magic, at least in the hands of two virtuosos. In the first dance the piano is decisive and the mandolin is more subservient, but in the second the focus carefully moves backwards and forwards between the two instruments, with careful and empathetic playing from both musicians – each alert to the needs of the other. This culminates in almost wanton enthusiasm in the third dance and final piece of the program, and the audience is so excited that it is almost on its feet! Some did.

 

Kym Clayton

 

When: Closed

Where: Adelaide Town Hall

Bookings: Closed