check out the photos of the gig

BATERZ:

A guy called baterz appeared on stage first. He's an ex canberra boy now residing in adelaide, one I'd been told to check out when he graced our city.

Baterz is pretty much a man with a guitar and some funny songs. Like not funny as in slightly odd (although some may disagree) but ha-ha funny. His songs were fairly anecdotal as far as lyrical style goes, and kind of reminiscent of tripod at times (tripod being three men and a guitar with some funny songs).

He has this really great style live, his whole personality seems to come thru. he talks a lot, often having conversations with the crowd midsong. he's very open to requests, in fact structures his gig solely on crowd-imposed setlists. the requesters this gig were a bit quiet until the end, then they all came at once. he got stuck into them for being silent the whole time then requesting lots of stuff when he had five minutes to go :)

Some of the songs played included one about photos of the mavis's appearing everywhere he looked, circa melbourne early 1990's (i did learn one thing from watching his show - not to request ufo after the mavis's. someone did, and apparently he can't play them after each other cos they're the same song.... :) ; my mother turned into a spider (fairly self explanatory); goth, complete with gothic vocals; one in the style of mikelangelo and co - "if you've never heard the next band before, this is the sort of stuff they'll be playing" - having seen mikelangelo and co before, it was pretty funny to see this one in action - if you've not seen them, this will probably make no sense to you and i'm not sure how i can explain it so it does. he also played one or maybe a couple written by a canberra guy who refuses to play his own songs so baterz plays them for him; a few songs about some pubs he's played in; plus other stuff that I'm buggered if I can remember now, but they were piss funny, i tell you.

At one point he had a bit of a play with his new machine. It was one of those ones where you play a few bars, hit a button, and the machine repeats it back over and over and over and over, and you play something else, and it repeats that too, and he was using this live on stage, so he'd intro a song, then lay down a four bar rythm guitar track, play it back over and over then play lead over the top. the solos were constructed in much the same way - two (or four - can't remember) bars repeated over and over, each time baterz adding another layer to it until he decided he should probably stop sometime soon. a fairly basic concept in theory, but to have the confidence to use it live when you've played around with it as little as he had made for interesting viewing. Personally I could have sat and watched him solo like that for hours, but he was losing the timing a bit towards the end :)

baterz - good muso, funny songs, and he's ex-canberran. go see him.

MIKELANGELO AND THE BLACK SEA GENTLEMEN:

I've seen mikelangelo and the black sea gentlemen two or three times before this. They play eastern european folk music - or at least what mike thinks eastern european fold music would sound like if he'd ever heard it.

The lineup has been guitar, clarinet, violin, but tonight they had a double bass player too. he's not very high up on my list of favourite double bass players I've seen, but he'll do :)

Opening the mikelangelo set was mike's sister. Think christa hughes, only without christa's style and finesse. She did one song, then mikelangelo and crew came on for their set. They didn't play my favourites, but the atmosphere of the gig made up for it.

It was the first time I'd seen them at tilleys, and the venue suits them. while the songs are very energetic and enthusiastic normally, it never felt quite right until they got to tilleys. They play the audience really well, and have so much fun playing. It's a very improv style of show, a lot of pieces of covers, a lot of joking around, and a lot of ... rearranging of songs :)

They have a habit of wandering around the crowd at some point in the show. I wasn't sure if it was possible with a double bass, but they did it. mind you, this being tilleys, they of the low ceiling fans, there was a minor lyrical interuption as mike warned his fellow travellers not to climb too high... personally i think tilleys should have signs at the door saying "warning - watch your head and arms"... no, really, i do!!

it was definitely a very energetic gig tonight, which together with the energetic songs, full (as in capacity, not as in alcohol consumption, although there was probably a fair bit of the latter going on too) and receptive crowd, made for a great performance.

SETLISTS:

BATERZ

MIKELANGELO AND THE BLACK SEA GENTLEMEN

in no particular order:
my mother's turned into a spider
hemophiliac
fifteen
foreign objects
the mavis's
goth
plus stacks of others