WA WA NEE

Can't Control Myself  (single review)

It's got a soppy start, and a soppy chorus, but the verses are alright compared to their normal stuff. It's not very fast, though, and I like fast music personally. This song doesn't make you want to do things - but it will enter the charts. They're certainly not top of my list of favourite bands.

Peter Vroom (Lance in Home and Away)
Smash Hits magazine 14 December 1988

Good news for Wa Wa Nee fans, who still seem to exist in quite large numbers despite the group's absense from our lives lately. The boys have just released one of those remixedextendedversion-type albums featuring loads of your favourites including "Gone" (12" mix) - this is a newie. "Stimulation" (12" mix). "Sugar Free" (New York mix). "Never Been So In Love" - apparently this was written  and recorded for a Japanese TV series!!!! "One And One" (12" mix) and "I Could Make You Love Me" (12" mix)! Git down!

Smash Hits Magazine, 25 January, 1988

Is there life on other planets?

Chris Sween: Everything's a life form, right down to the smallest fibre.

Steve Williams: I hate to throw a cold thing on this, but I'm a scientist and apparently the chanced of being life at all are so small that the chances of there being two lots of life are ridicuously small.

Mark Gray: If there are we'll be playing to 'em

Smash Hits Magazine, 16 November, 1987

Extending Their Sphere of Influence - Smash Hits Magazine 29/06/87
(click for article)

One And One (Ain't Good Enough)  (single review)

Wa Wa Nee are much maligned and they're not getting enough credit for what they actually do. They're not on about very much, it's just dance music but that's fine. In Australia it's unfashionable to do just straight out dance music and I think they do it really well. I hope this one's as successful as the last few. Paul Gray isn't pretty enough to be Prince though - he needs to take a few more clothes off.

Red Symons (former Skyhooks member)
Smash Hits magazine 1 June, 1987

I Could Make You Love Me (single review)

More pop chiches from a band that insist from beginning to end that they are going to make us love them. Love them you may but, if this is a sample of what's to come, you could be better off with something more substantial.

James Freud, Smash Hits magazine 6 October, 1986

I don't think the age of consent should be lowered until sex education is made compulsory from a young age in schools. If people are mature enough and take the right precautions, 16 seems resonable. - Paul Gray, 1988

WA WA NE RELATED

Good Lord keeps on truckin'

CLASSIC ROCK: ASO Plays Deep Purple
Festival Theatre, March 27 2008

It was the night the Lord reigned in a purple patch of classical rock.

Getting Deep Purple founding member Jon Lord to come to play with the ASO was a stroke of genius.

His rock achievements with the 1970s group have obviously overshadowed his classical genius. But the balance was restored in this contrasting evening of musical excellence which showed the great composer's more serious side.

Act I was given over to Lord's engaging Concerto For Group And Orchestra.

Conductor Benjamin Northey led the ASO with style, though this battle of the orchestras and Adelaide's Zep Boys Warwick Cheatle and Steve Williams, with some vocals from Vince Contarino.

Lord described the combative nature of the three-part piece beautifully, especially the race to the finish line, which provided a dazzling draw.

Act II let rip, with the rock band up front and Contarino prowling and howling up a storm.

Hits such as Speed King Highway Star, Space Truckin' and Woman From Tokyo got the crowd grooving with a remarkable synergy between the band and the ASO.

Then Black Night, Never Before and Smoke On the Water brought it home, as Contarino really let his raging vocals off the leash. The blending of the orchestra and the band was fantastic and a credit to all involved, as the strings sang in hyper mode.

The return of Lord to play keyboards for epic Child In Time was perfect timing and brought the evening to a classic crescendo.

Williams and Lord bounced off each other brilliantly in a night out few rock fans would ever have expected and will never forget.

Lord was humble and he was perfect in every way.

Matt Byrne

Adelaide Now, 30 March, 2008

Deep Purple fusion stands the test of time

DEEP Purple keyboardist Jon Lord brought the British rock outfit's 1969 Concerto for Group and Orchestra back to life in Adelaide last night.

The concerto, lost for almost 30 years, occupied the first half of the program and truly set a new benchmark for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra's rock crossover programming. While it bears a few quirky hallmarks of its era, for the most part Lord's epic three-movement composition not only stands the test of time, but shines as a successful – and ground-breaking – fusion of rock and symphony.

Lilting melodies from the string section swell into an almost Tchaikovsky-like dance, full of drama and punctuated with brassy fanfares. The orchestral arsenal then builds to thunderous proportions before dropping abruptly to reveal the comparatively lean rock quartet – a role filled in this case by Adelaide's Zep Boys.

Jazzy lead and bass guitar licks hint at Deep Purple's early orientation. The orchestra strikes back, bar for bar, until Lord's own soulful Hammond organ solo gradually woos the two battling sides together.

In the second, more gentle movement, there is initial trepidation as orchestra and group try to find mutual ground. Lord achieves a more pastoral feel, as if set in an English garden, complemented by singer Vince Contarino's troubadour style, almost medieval vocals.

The concerto takes on greater urgency in its final movement, enhancing the filmic quality of the piece. Steve Williams' lead guitar now sings above the orchestra, while Lord's own organ break definitely shows its psychadelic '60s roots. After an epic, intricate, stick-twirling drum solo by Mark Chewey, all forces join through an escalating series of crescendos and cascades to reach a cataclysmic conclusion.

The sound balance between band and orchestra was superb throughout, and certainly among the best achieved in this series of Showcase concerts,

In the second half of the show, the Zep Boys took front of stage to perform Purple's greatest hits, with the orchestra largely filling the void that Lord's organ would usually occupy on such tracks as Never Before and Strange Kinda Woman.

The strings, however, fairly roared through Justin Kearin's arrangements on Speed King, added a strangely melancholy bridge to My Woman From Tokyo and put a Shaft-like funk riff at the start of Space Trucking – on which Contarino sent his own voice soaring into orbit.

Dom Harvey's arrangement of Smoke on the Water turned it into an absolute maelstrom – swirling, hot and intense – while the frantic pulse of the cellos fuelled a high-octane Highway Star.

But it was Lord's return, to lead the majestic keyboard introduction on Child in Time, that finally brought the concert full circle – and the audience to its feet.

The Advertiser, 28 March, 2008