Words by Geoff Jenke
In the last few weeks we have witnessed shows with big crowds in The Garden Of Unearthly Delights, WOMAD, 65,000+ at Ed Sheeran, many tens of thousands at Chisel, Live and Robbie, so it was nice to get back to the pub and witness a couple of good rock bands from just a few metres away. The Scottish community was also out in full force.
South Australia’s own Borderers opened proceedings, looking splendid in their leather kilts. I mean, who ese would you get to support a Scottish band in Adelaide? Their performance was highly energetic, infectious and had the crowd on their side from the opening number, Devils Highway. I have seen them several times and just don’t know where they get the energy from. Jim and Alex also ventured out into audience to incite them into clapping and stomping their feet. They also snuck an extra song, The Proclaimers 500 Miles, with one of the Big Country roadies looking from the sidelines pointing at his watch. I am sure Big Country didn’t mind. The crowd certainly didn’t.
Big Country formed in Scotland in 1981 and their debut album, The Crossing, broke them big worldwide thanks to the single In a Big Country. The heavily engineered guitar playing on the single sounded like bagpipes which caught the attention of radio and sent the song top 10 worldwide. Unfortunately, further releases didn’t quite catch on outside of the U.K. but the band continued releasing quality albums until lead singer Stuart Adamsom’s death in 2001. The band reformed in 2007 to celebrate the 25th year of the band and have been playing in various forms since. The band are currently represented by two original members, guitarist Bruce Watson and drummer Mark Brzezicki. Simon Hough is the current vocalist and has been with the band since 2013.
This tour, the band is playing their 1983 debut album, The Crossing in full. It wasn’t in order, in fact they started with the last track on the album, Porrohman, a rather long track that set a high standard for the evening. It had a long instrumental opening that slowly built up towards the vocals. It was a clever and beautiful thing. Harvest Home and 1000 Stars followed before a deviation from the debut album in Walk Away, from 1986’s The Seer. This song had the crowd really showing their support for the band by singing along with arms raised.
The night progressed with the majority of the set coming from The Crossing, but the band throwing in tracks like Wonderland, Steeltown and Just a Shadow from other releases. At one stage singer Simon Hough asked if anyone in the audience came from Scotland and we soon had a number of Scottish towns and city names thrown back at them. We were introduced to John, in the front row, who had come out from the U.K. for the show, such is the dedication of the fans.
On a busy Adelaide night, I was surprised at the number of people who turned up. They were not the curious, but the obviously dedicated fan, drinking beer and singing along loudly. The band were also obviously having a good time on stage even though they claimed to be jet-lagged, having only flown in from Perth that day.
The encore could only be one song, In A Big Country sounding even more furious than the original single. At the end the band remained on stage and drummer Mark Brzezicki gave a few moving words in remembrance of Stuart Adamson. Touching!
Nothing fancy, just great straight forward Rock’n’Roll, and we didn’t want it any other way.
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