I
only arrived in time to catch the last few songs of the opening support act,
Stone, and although I wasn't familiar with them, they kept referring to their
"oldies" and a forthcoming "new" CD, so apparently they
have been around for a while. The closing number, which sounded a little like
Jeff Dahl auditioning for Rose Tattoo, was the best of what I did manage to
catch.
Next up were Orange County, who can always be relied upon to put on a good show. Despite the spangled rodeo garb and occasional cowboy allusions, they're pretty mainstream rock'n'roll and competent musicians who don't take themselves too seriously, so I was happily entertained throughout their set.
And then it was time for NC juggernaut to steamroll over me once again. Despite their set being prone to an unusually high incidence of technical problems, the band thundered through the performance with a degree of assurance and conviction that is doubtless the envy of contemporaries and an object lesson to the majority of newer bands.
Their roadie cum soundman (Lee from the Thermals) spent most of the evening locked into a valiant, but seemingly vain, struggle with a wayward and recalcitrant sound system that kept the vocals too low in the mix for much of the set, was prone to occasional loud buzzing and at one point took to playing music of its own accord, despite his protestations that there was nothing in the attached CD player.
On top of this, Mark Wilkinson broke a string early on and then Al Creed responded by breaking a string on each of his guitars. When Al broke his first string, Lee whipped the discarded guitar back stage and returned before the end of the next song with it restrung, only to be greeted by the sight of another broken string dangling from Al's second guitar. The smile on his face, a combination of "oh what bad luck chaps" and "get stuffed", seemed to convey everything that needed to be said; he made no attempt to re-string the second guitar.
Even Rob had trouble locating his tambourine to begin with... But through it all, the music did not let up and the commitment did not waver. Highlight of the night for me was a slightly slowed down, more severe version of "These Rags"; positively seething with resentment compared to the intense but dispassionate version played at the Excelsior Hotel back in June.
Despite requests, calls and general pleading from the audience, there was no encore at the end of the set. I don't know if the Fishos has a 12pm curfew or whether this was due to some issues with the venue/promoter, the dirty linen from which was aired on the Divine Rites mailing list recently.
One thing I can say in favour of the Fishos is that at least the stage had sufficient room for Christian Houllemare & Al Creed to move around, unlike at Bizzos where the stage was so small they seemed to be bumping into each other if they even so much as attempted to breathe at the same time.
Aside from the recently announced excursion up the coast via Coffs Harbour to Brisbane towards the end of this month, apparently there is also the possibility of another short sojourn to Melbourne before Christmas, but sadly nothing more is planned for Sydney until after the scheduled trip into the studio in January to finish the new album. Even with an encore, no amount of New Christs music would ever be enough for this punter, so I suspect that the wait is going to seem every bit as long as it really is.
Meanwhile drummer Stuart Wilson's hair continues its exploration of the visible spectrum with an iridescent black replacing the flaming cherry red and platinum white of the previous two gigs reported here.
I await further
developments, on all fronts, with optimism and a large measure of yearning.
-
John McPharlin
