September is a wondrous time for Brisbane arts. It’s when the famous
traveling Spiegeltent comes to town as part of Brisbane Festival.
Tonight was the return of The Basics. After a three-year hiatus, the band was back with a vengeance to prove themselves as one of the best live acts around.
Where do I even start? As knowledge would have it, The Basics are Kris Schroeder, Tim Heath and Wally De Backer.
When they came on stage in their dapper suits bang on 7.15pm (early I
know!), the room went bananas. Me included. My one an only previous
experience of The Basics was their final ever show before taking a break
for an undisclosed period of time.
They played mostly songs from their early releases with a handful of
new songs thrown in as well. They did this as the 'late' show was going
to feature some newer material. They opened without saying a word
playing “The No. 1 Cause of Death Amongst Youth Today”, which is such a
strong song to start with. They then began the friendly banter that
would continue for the rest of the evening. I’m going to provide you
with some insight form the minds of these men throughout the review
starting with Wally asking after the first song to have
'A bee’s dick more foldback. I can’t hear my voice', Kris then went on to pay out Wally’s 'beautiful' voice.
Speaking of Mr De Backer, he is sensational on the drums. I was fully
expecting him to break a cymbal or at least a stick or two! Also, he
looks so incredibly happy when he plays the drums. And everytime
something maybe wasn’t perfect, he would have a little chuckle and smile
to himself. By the time they reached “Rattle My Chain” and “Memory
Lane”, they had the audience in the palms of their hands. It made me
laugh when they introduced the year of one of these songs and they
couldn’t actually remember when they first recorded it and a member of
the audience corrected them.
Wally’s newbie “Roundabout” proves that you don’t need genius lyrics
to have a sensational song. The word roundabout was used more than few
time in the song but that didn’t lessen the beauty of the song. Their
final song of the set was Tim’s song, “Hey Rain” which he dedicated to
Northern Queensland. It was simply stunning to hear all three men
singing in luscious harmony with only Tim’s guitar for accompaniment. It
was still the Basics as we know and love them, just in a more mature
way.
Of cause they came back for an encore. Everyone knows it’s not over
till the house music comes on! Kris lead the band in a somber break-up
song with actually brought a tear to my eye. His voice has such a fine,
tight vibrato that just envelops all around it. The songs as a whole was
just too beautiful, and as I write this memories come flooding back of
the mood he created. Think “All or Nothing”, but even more intense.
They finished their hour and a bit long set with two covers. I
thought it appropriate that they perform The Beatles’ “Come Together”,
as they to me are a modern Beatles when they play in that true
rock’n’roll genre. They then played their version of The Police’s
“Roxanne”. After the first verse, Wally said, 'Oo, that was a bit fast
wasn’t it!' Immediately, the next verse was slower. Incredible!
This has got to be one of the best gigs I’ve been to in a long time.
Such an incredible band with the power to actually engage the audience
in friendly banter between songs rather than just bore them with trivial
nothings. I was laughing my ass off. Yes LMAO. No, seriously, they made
me giggle uncontrollably, and left me leaving with a grin on my face.
That is how a gig should be.
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