X
+ PENNY IKINGER INC
Sandringhan Hotel, Newtown
March 16, 2007X
+ DIMI DERO INC
Sandringham Hotel, Newtown
March 17, 2007Whatever controversy there was about X reforming without Ian Rilen, it wasn't in the air around the Sandringham Hotel this muggy Friday night. It's a fact that Ian's departure from this world in late 2006 cast a bigger shadow over rock and roll in Melbourne and Sydney than the little guy could ever have imagined or physically managed. He can't be brought back - but no-one was trying this weekend.
I doubt X would have reformed with him, 30th anniversary or not. Ian was just too determined not to look back - and it was obvious whenever anyone raised the issue. That moot point said, this show, with Steve Lucas ("the only original surviving member", as his myspace reminds us) on guitar and vocals and longest-serving drummer (and ex-Rilen squeeze) Cathy Green on drums, was more a celebration of the music than an appropriation of the band's (or anyone else's) individual legacy. More on the band membership soon but this two-night stand by the band - an X-humation, if you like - seemed to be done with a lot of respect and love, and the feeling between band and audience was mutual.First up was Penny Ikinger Inc, the European touring vehicle for Melbourne's mistress of the six-string and breathy vocal, Penny Ikinger. Comprising Dimi Dero (the man, not the band, currently touring Oz) on drums, Vinz (Dimi Dero Inc and Holy Curse) on bass and Penny on guitar and vocals, they proceeded to enthrall the small but growing crowd.
The point's been made here before that Penny Ikinger's music defies strict categorisation, running the gamut from psych-folk to stinging dissonance, and there's a real empathy between her and her French players. Dimi has a deft touch around the kit one moment that yields to unbridled brutality the next, while Vinz uses complex basslines to anchor the rhythms superbly. A sprinkling of newer songs mix it with the old; of the latter, "Kathleen" scorches the carpet in this tin-lined upstairs bandroom.
Penny and Co were a fitting opening act whose performance sounded even a little better than the previous night at the Excelsior.
So to X and the crowd had now built to uncomfortable levels, mainly due to the heat. And you had to wonder about the welfare of some of the punters being, as they were, mostly over 50. There were mothers and daughters, as well as some of the more colourful/eccentric detritus that washed up on the shores of Darlinghurst and decided to stay, back when ice was something you put in your drink if you were a poof and Oxford Street really did have a nick-full of cops with batons that they weren't afraid to use.
A few punters might have been fanning themselves with whatever was close to hand but the real heat was on bassist Kim Volkman, who genuinely flinched earlier in the downstairs bar when someone good naturedly described him as "the new Ian". He clearly wasn't setting out to be that. Even though some of the mugging and mannerisms might have been familiar, they're more own as well as a side effect of having played alongside Rilen for years as as member of his Love Addicts. Volkman's bass sound was less trebly, and in many if not most of the songs, he brought his own basslines rather than slavishly copy those played by Ian.
There wasn't a complaint in the house when the band cranked out those opening chords for "Degenerate Boy". Nor at any stage over the two sets that followed.
If you curious why X was splitting the gig into a pair of 45-minute sets, wonder no more. The heat was overpowering but you actually got more songs for your 15 bucks, if you thought about it. The band looked nervous (and admitted as much after) but Lucas and Green fortified themselves with shots of Tequila between songs.
There were a few surprises along the way. The rarely heard "Going Down" got an outing as did the quirky "Burning on the Beaches". "Mother" was dedicated to the departed Rilen on both nights and crept along on a crunching, turgid rhythm - perhaps the slowest and most brutal cover of this tune that this or any other X line-up has done.
"Suck Suck" reeked adrenalin and contempt for sell-outs everywhere and "The Feel" swung like few other songs can.
But Friday really came alive in "I Don't Wanna Go Out", whose liquid bassline Kim pegged perfectly. A request for "Waiting" got turned down and "Half Way Round the World" fell apart as a now fairly intoxicated Cathy jumped off the kit, declaring herself "unable to play that without Ian". No offence intended to the other band members, I'm sure.
Biggest cheer of the evening came for "Degenerate Boy", which remains the most honest admission of a gutter existence penned in Australia, bar none. There would have been an even bigger cheer if Cathy had gone through with her threat to take off her shirt and swap it for the X number a boofy bloke was wearing in the front row, but he wasn't up to stripping so it all came to nought.
If there were doubts about Lucas and Green's ability to share a stage without killing each other (and there have been timesin the past), tonight buried those notions. Lucas was the self-deprecating, sharp-of-wit, gentleman frontman and Green couldn't wipe a smile off her dial for most of the gig.
Dimi Dero Inc were Saturday's openers and scaled the same heights as Penny Ikinger Inc the previous evening. So much so, that they invited Penny up to guest on a rippling cover of the Beasts of Bourbon's "The Low Road". Speaking of covers, they also tossed in a closing "Ace of Spades" (Motorhead, maaaan) that threw most people, after a set of uncompromising and dark blues rock. For mine, the high-point came halfway through with the menacing "Damn", where a relentless backbeat throws a stark guitarline in relief and Dimi spits out the words like he's truly pissed off.
Saturday night found X in even better form.
In the finest traditions of this band, Steve Lucas was recovering from an all-night bender that saw him stagger in at 7am, but if the effects were toxic, he wasn't showing it. A beaming Cathy moderated her Tequila shot intake but was nothing less than a lethal marvel on the kit. Kim Volkman turned on the aural concrete truck again to damaging effect.
Not much difference to the set list from Friday except it was re-ordered with all three members taking turns to call the tune. X seemed more settled and less nervous.
Was it "TV Glue" as the opener? Can't exactly recall but it seized the punters by the throats. The full-house crowd put the structural soundness of the Sando's upstairs bar floor in doubt and at times the place was shaking so much it looked like we'd all end up where the old stage used to be i.e. downstairs.
The temperature was less debilitating and the band not only again gave everything it had, but everything it had rehearsed - to the extent that we got two "Degenerate Boys" as they'd run out of songs.
This was supposed to be a "special event" as in this line-up was unlikely to surface again without good excuse (like the re-issue of "At Home With You" on Aztec later this year), but by the reaction of audience and band I'd have to cast off my own earlier doubts and say X in this form is a sustainable thing.
And here's the hot news...Thursday, May 17 and Saturday, May 19, X will be re-releasing At Home With You at the Excelsior. They will be selling X merch, together with Ian's other stuff.
