Mariachi El Bronx
Eagle and the Worm + The Ukeladies
The Forum, Melbourne
Saturday 23rd October 2010
Melbourne's Forum theatre, heaving under the weight of two weeks of hand-picked tributes to the idea that rock and roll can sometimes be proper art, was gagging for a release of some sort and Saturday night's final stand delivered in buckets of the sponsor's product.
At the very Spanish hour of 9:30pm, Dan Kelly collaborators
The Ukeladies were holding court in their expanded mode with Dan Luscombe -- who had graced the stage just 24-hours earlier with The Drones -- assisting on slide guitar. Maybe it was the dubious acoustics, but it wasn't until dapper collaborator Captain Manas assumed storytelling duties on closer ‘Angelina' that the girls' schtick properly translated. Not much more than an accomplished novelty act, but sometimes that's all you want.
Eagle and the Worm popped up in front of a rapidly-filling dancefloor and were their usual sprawling 8-member beast, with the volume jacked up so loud heads (and egos) were in danger of rapid implosion. Amid between-song bragging about their growing crate of "7 inches" the band blasted through ballads like 'Too Young' and the sprawling 'Good Times' in which Jarrad Brown's vocals were drowned out by what sounded like a big band fed through 40 amplifiers. Occupying a previously untrammelled middle ground somewhere between Custard and Phil Spector and clearly loving it, jaunty closer 'All I Know' was the standout.
By the time
Mariachi El Bronx (nee The Bronx) appeared well after midnight, the anticipation resembled a Led Zeppelin reunion tour, rather than say five white SoCal punks about to indulge their Tex Mex fantasies. But, as the band's acceptance by the real deal mariachi community shows, these dudes have well and truly thrown off their Vans through graft and hard work.
(The mariachi move was apparently the result of requests to play an acoustic set, and instead of what Melbourne audiences witnessed on the recent Revival tour, where Hot Water Music, Avail and Lucero went all singer-songwriter, The Bronx, responsible for one of the most blistering - and festival-saving - Meredith sets ever in 2008, decided to get creative).
Decked out in authentic south-of-the-border suits and wielding genuine Mexican instruments, they opened with the scathing 'Slave Labor' (
"I won't live like a slave / And I won't bury my name"), which coming from a country whose politicians are falling over themselves to build a wall to insulate their psyches from swarthy immigrants, was a revelation in itself.
The amazing Ray Suen on violin, also a semi-regular member of The Killers, strangely, anchored most of the ditties taken from last year's self-titled record. While some people would have hated it, Matt Caughthran’s still unmistakably punk crooning actually lent the songs more gravitas, especially on ‘Lady Rosales’, dedicated to "the one that got away", which nearly every Beck's swilling dude in the crowd appeared to identify with.
This wasn't exactly the unbridled party set people were baying for, but it made up for it in poignancy, with Caughthran's gratitude ("who would have thought four white dudes would one day be playing Mexican music in a theatre in Melbourne") palpable. After the foot-stamping subsided, the band were back for a mass singalong (!) of 'My Love' and 'Sleepwalking' in an authentic 7-man lineup across the front of the stage.
A sweaty, epic show; not of the type anyone, aside from the select few that caught them last time, had really witnessed before.
Andrew Crook
(Pics: Kristy Milliken)