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Is this review positive, negative, or neutral?

  • Positive

    Votes: 19 90.5%
  • Negative

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Neutral

    Votes: 2 9.5%

  • Total voters
    21

indra

ONE love, blood, life
Joined
Jan 20, 2004
Messages
12,689
Please read the following gig review and then vote positive review, negative review, neutral review. You don't have to know the band being reviewed (might actually be better if you don't) -- I just want to know if you think the review itself is positive, negative, or neutral. (having a discussion about this review eslewhere, so I thought I'd come here for a different perspective on it.) You can comment if you'd like too, but you don't have to if you don't want to. Thanks!



One of the '80s contemporaries of the Church, the Smiths, once sang that "I wear black on the outside because black is how I feel on the inside". What are we to make, then, of the Church performing in gleaming - as in guess whose mum's got a Whirlpool? gleaming - all-white?

The answer became obvious, after watching the quartet crack jokes at each other's expense ("Play bass Tim; you play everything else anyway," joshed regular bass player and singer Steve Kilbey of drummer/producer/pianist/backing vocalist Tim Powles during one of many swaps of instruments on stage), smile frequently and generally take a whimsical eye at the world (their most successful songs were introduced with ever-inflated tales of the many "millions" of dollars made).

Twenty-five years into a career that long ago gave up any pretensions to the Top 40 and boasting a line-up with three original members and one newbie, Powles, who has been there a decade, the Church are feeling damn fine. Perky. Persil fresh, you could say.

That freshness infected every song in this quasi-retrospective concert series, which is deliberately taking a break from the expansive mood pieces of their regular show.

You could see from the opening number, the venerable Unguarded Moment done almost as a stately march, through to the encore's exploration of Constant In Opal as a mix of the blues, Patti Smith and even Peter, Paul and Mary, that invention rather than convention was the rule.

With Peter Koppes as often at the piano as at the acoustic guitar, Marty Willson-Piper - who can't completely tone down his flamboyance - nearly as often at the drums and bass as at his acoustic and Powles finding new ways to suggest rather than force rhythms, some of the roots of these songs (English folk, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan to name but three which don't fit the old stereotype of jingle jangle influences) were happily laid bare. With Kilbey in good sardonic form, the mood matched the performances. That is, they pleased without effort and suggested torpor won't be a factor in a present or future still looking bright. Napisan bright, even.
 
Am I missing something? That seems pretty positive to me. It's all about settling down and just being who you are.
 
the rockin edge said:
:ohmy:omg, indra started a thread about "the church" :faint:


;)

:madspit:


I was gonna edit out all names and specific references to who it was, but I had to go out and didn't have time. Besides I'm lazy. :shrug:



And strangely enough, not counting this thread, I've only started one thread here about The Church. Now I can, and do, manage to work them into just about every other thread in existance here..... :whistle: :wink:
 
Last edited:
indra said:


:madspit:


I was gonna edit out all names and specific references to who it was, but I had to go out and didn't have time. Besides I'm lazy. :shrug:



And strangely enough, not counting this thread, I've only started one thread here about The Church. Now I can, and do, manage to work them into just about every other thread in existance here..... :whistle: :wink:


it could be worse, you could do that with u2 :wink:


:heart: :bono: THE GOAL IS SOUL :bono: :heart:
 
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