TUESDAY, 18th April 2006
Rove Live - TV appearance
Notes: The band play "One Crowded Hour" on Rove Live (aired 23rd April), apparently massively increasing their concert attendances.
Watch it here.
MONDAY, 24th April 2006
ABC Melbourne Studios - Live at the Wireless
Details here.
WEDNESDAY, 26th April 2006
ANU Bar, Canberra ACT
Support: Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males
Setlist:
Train
The Cold Acre
One Crowded Hour
Mother Greer
Stranger Strange
Thin Captain Crackers
Clockwork
There is No Such Place
The Night Is A Blackbird
Just Passing Through
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Bottle Baby
Vernoona
THURSDAY, 27th April 2006
Yallah Roadhouse, Yallah NSW
Support: Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males
FRIDAY, 28th April 2006
@ Newtown, Petersham NSW
Support: Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males
Setlist:
The Cold Acre
This Train Will Be Taking No Passengers
Mother Greer
Victoria's Secret
The Baron Of Sentiment
Thin Captain Crackers
The Keepa
Song In The Key of Chance
Bottle Baby
Sunstroke House
One Crowded Hour
Clockwork
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There Is No Such Place
The Hole In Your Roof
Just Passing Through
Vernoona
Notes: Really, really good show. Played a bit over 90mins, band was in good spirits. Some quality banter. Highlights were The Hole In Your Roof; really nice suprise, they played it really well live, played it with quite a bit of intensity, Clockwork; sounds awesome live, like "the hole..." its quite intense, the band got really noisy and rocked out. it was cool, Song In The Key Of Chance; really comes into its own live, and There Is No Such Place/Bottle Baby; both really sublime, pretty songs. Glenn should do solo shows more often, itd be silly to say that they're better, but he's a really intimate performer when hes on his own, and the same applies to these songs - pretty much solo with minimal backing flourishes.
SATURDAY, 29th April 2006
@ Newtown, Petersham NSW
Support: Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males
Notes: Best ever Sunstroke House. Lots of technical problems, but like Glenn said, the long-term fans love it. Everyone loves it. Unless you were particularly keen on hearing Little Wonder - Brundisium being played instead.
SUNDAY, 30th April 2006
Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle NSW
Support: Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males, Seabellies
Setlist:
One Crowded Hour
Clockwork
Here Comes The Night
Thin Captain Crackers
Bottle Baby
There Is No Such Place
Sunstroke House
Song In The Key Of Chance
Notes: Setlist incomplete.
Augie March, Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males, The Seabellies @ Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle (30/04/06)
Gig Reviews by carlos esq, 5th May, 2006
Seldom is a song such an apt description for a night, but for little over one very crowded hour at the Cambridge Hotel, Augie March front man Glenn Richards may as well have been the only one in the room. On the back of their magnificent single “One Crowded Hour” (not to mention many years of hard work) Augie’s latest opus Moo, You Bloody Choir has found a place in that most, cough, hallowed of places: the Aria top ten. And by the sold-out signs plastered around Newcastle’s ticket distributors, wouldn’t you just know it.
Despite the teeming masses, Richards, in his own imperfect yet affable way, placed the spotlight squarely on himself and his band’s unique music. Yes, there were two support bands – the good-times, but slightly underwhelming pub-rock of Dan Kelly and Alpha Males, and the inventive yet developing locals the Seabellies, whose scope is a little Arcade Fire, a little Jeff Buckley – but tonight only really belonged to Shepparton’s finest.
One couldn’t be disappointed. Regardless of hilariously serious calls to “play it louder” Augie March did what they do best – break your heart and play with your fragile emotions – with some witty banter thrown in for good measure. Kicking off with a rollicking rendition of ‘The Cold Acre’, their shortened set (as a result of a curfew apparently) focussed heavily on material from the new album. Surprisingly ‘One Crowded Hour’ was thrown in next and was accompanied by a bloodthirsty choir, obviously unaffected by the bolt from the blue that was the early appearance of Augie March’s “hit”. Rounding off a thrilling introduction was ‘Just Passing Through’ which saw the band bring the rock, so to speak, with Richard’s gentle chirrup transformed into a vitriolic howl. As the song came to a crashing halt, the audience were breathlessly informed that they had just experienced the fastest song the band had ever played and Richards exercised his power by leading them in a chant of “Dave, why did you play it so fast?” aimed at drummer Dave Williams. Cue general elation.
Although his voice failed a couple of times throughout, and he even forgot a few lines here and there Richards kept the crowd guessing: there was an almost-silent room for the almost-solo ‘Bottle Baby’ (yes, for some it was too quiet), while old favourite ‘This Train is Taking No Passengers’ almost derailed the largely static audience into a swaying, nodding, and tap-footing frenzy. Like Augie March on record, it was all too easy to get pulled in by the vivid imagery portrayed in songs like ‘This Train…’ and ‘Thin Captain Crackers’ even if you only related them from memory, as the sight of many moving mouths in the dark demonstrated. This was also attested to by the guy who, afterwards, hailed a taxi with a single holler of “train!”
Music does indeed do strange things to people. While the show ended with Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males joining the band on-stage for a swaggering cover of Neil Young’s ‘Don’t Cry No Tears’ (it could be argued music does strange things to the musicians too), the emotional high-point had come the song previous. As the opening plucking of ‘There is No Such Place’ echoed around the room, it became apparent that it was that time of night for you to take in your arms that special one and, well, you know the rest. Taking into account a packed room and a top-ten album, that’s a lot of “our song” to put up with. It is testament to the live performance of Augie March that there are few such places that you can feel so intimate with so many people.
SLIME FROM THE DRILLHEAD-An Augie March Tour Diary
By Adam, from the Augie Myspace page.
Wednesday 26 April. ANU Bar Canberra
Let’s start with a question. How thoroughly should you prepare for a 30 date national tour? It is definitely possible to over-rehearse. Whilst one can never underestimate the galvanising effects of fear and confusion (certain to mingle uninvited backstage prior to the opening show, both as predictable and unpleasant as a stream of urgent text messages from friends and family whom you have promised, and then forgotten, to register on the guest-list) or the acrid tinge of liquid adrenaline in the throat, you can nevertheless position too many sandbags around the stage and you can smooth edges of sound and performance in such a way that the result is an incremental amputation of the tiny limbs of spontaneous invention that might distinguish a flawless performance from a great one.
So one rehearsal will be fine. We’ll work out the guitar tunings and set lists when we get to the show. It will be cool.
After two songs it is obvious that a fiasco is in progress. The guitars are all tuned like hungover chickens. Dave has snapped the rattle-wire from his snare drum. Kiernan has not realised that a volume pedal is attached to his organ and is playing mute. The band doesn’t seem to be playing the same bits of the song at the same time. Crashing bathos ensues at a pre-song tuning impasse as Glenn announces that he is unable to perform momentarily and that “the band will meanwhile play some jazz for you”. The humorous distraction of incompetently rendered New Orleans blues becomes tiresome after seven minutes or so. Glenn abandons the adventurous set list of new songs and curls under a blanket of golden oldies. “I feel a bit disoriented” he informs the audience. “Yeah” adds Dave from behind the kit, “he went to go to the toilet before the show and filled up the hand-basin instead”.
It is a great night, truly.
Saturday 29 April, Newtown RSL Sydney
Augie March rarely attract lascivious female admirers. For some reason when the lead singer warns the front row of the audience that he has a faulty zipper it resonates less with the amorous tease of Mick Jagger’s famous banter at Madison Square Garden in 1969 (“I think I busted a button on my trousers, hope they don't fall down. You don't want my trousers to fall down now do you?”) and more with the slapstick potential of a Mr Bean segment. When girls have gained entry to the Augie dressing room they have invariably asked if they can be introduced to the support band.
This is only discoursed for the reason that tonight an unfamiliar girl is present in the band’s hotel room; she vomits red wine into the bin and passes out in a large cardboard box.
Thursday 4 May, The Zoo Brisbane
This is the second night of a two-show residency at the famous Brisbane grunge attic. The previous evening had ended with a bottle of vermouth being passed from lip to lip and an amicable debate about the merits of Dave using a metronome as a guide to start each song at the correct tempo. Glenn argues that the drummer should let his passion and mood for the impending song dictate its speed rather than a pre-configured algorithm, and slips in the barb “People have said you are a very straight rhythm section”.
Tonight the metronome is placed in cotton wool and Dave bursts onto stage cloaked in robes of “passion and mood”. The first three songs are unleashed at a pace so frighteningly impassioned that riffs are truncated, structures upended and Glenn is required to chop lines from verses, words from lines and syllables from words. The singer does not require a metronome to set the tempo for the torrent of expletive-riddled bile he hoses on his drummer. “Glenn, do you remember the conversation we had in the hotel last night?” Dave calmly enquires. “Yes, and I told you I don’t go for guys with mutton-chops” comes the reply as quick as anything heard on the stage all night.
Wednesday 10 May, Karova Lounge Ballarat
There is no band-room at this venue. Before the show the players huddle protectively between the merchandise stall and the pool table as a bouncer regularly opens the nearby door inviting fierce gusts of subzero condensation. There are promising rumours of a caravan in some car park that stays open all night ladling pea soup into polystyrene cups.
There is perhaps a tendency to accord regional shows with less gravitas than capital city engagements; the provincial concert-goer might well be justified in absorbing some offence from this conclusion but they are frequently compensated with an uninhibited performance of gleeful abandon and reckless inventiveness. This is perhaps the case for most of tonight’s show and confirmed indubitably as Dave precedes the encore by bouncing onto stage clad only in body-shirt and thermal leggings then conducting a short but spirited aerobics class. Someone throws a bottle at his head and narrowly misses. It is Glenn.
Thursday 11 May, Ruby’s Belgrave
There is a very large downstairs dressing room at this venue. It is actually bigger than the room that the acts perform in. Before the show an unfamiliar man confidently enters and, without greeting or explanation, lurches towards the room’s only other portal – a heavily alarmed emergency exit. When questioned politely (“Forsooth, wherefore this precipitous motion squire?”) he explains that his girlfriend is upstairs and he wishes to leave the venue without the bitch knowing, then vanishes under a blather of sirens.
After the show several vampish blondes arrive backstage and ask if they can meet Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males.
Saturday 13 May, HiFi Bar Melbourne
Edmondo arrives for the show dressed immaculately in a brown pin-stripe suit, silk tie and fedora hat. He is every inch the consecrated Corleone and takes this persona onto the stage with him, wielding his bass like an Armalite carbine rifle and pumping out incendiary reams of low-frequency bullets into anyone and anything unfortunate enough to stray upon the line of his quadraphonic boom. Kiernan’s peppered frame has to be peeled off the side-fill by the stage crew and replaced gingerly on his piano stool before taking part in the encore, painfully aware he has crossed one Sicilian that does not adhere to a code of silence.
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