Chocolate Starfish – The Gov Friday 13 April 2018.
Words Geoff Jenke
Chocolate Star Fish were regarded as one of Australia’s best 90s live bands. They released two albums in their short career, the self-titled debut in 1994 and Box in 1995, both top 5 hits.
It was a cover of Carly Simon’s song Your So Vain that helped propel them to become one of Australia’s favourite acts of the 1990’s. They followed this single up with two more hits, in All Over Me and Mountain.
In 2010 Chocolate Starfish reformed but sadly guitarist Zoran Romic was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and sadly in 2012 he passed away. The band decided to continue on, touring alongside Jimmy Barnes, Ian moss and Dragon.
Now they have a new album out called Spiders and the Starfish hit the Gov in support of the album and to remind us once again how good they were live.
The first thing that hit me when the band hit the stage, was how much vocalist Andy Thompson looked like Uncle Fester from the TV show, Addams Family with his bald head, bulging eyes and wicked smile. The second thing that hit me was how loud it was. The band launched into the opening song Farmer Loretta, off their new album, a mix of country and rock n roll. Have the band gone Country Rock. Far from it.
The hit single All Over Me came next and the dance floor in front of the stage started filling rapidly with Andy Thompson encouraging everyone to join the growing crowd down the front. His energy seemed boundless as he roamed all over the stage, grinning wickedly.
When they played Mountain, the band had the crowd joining in with a sing-a-long section. Sin City Baby, off the new album had a heavier bluesy feel to it and Accidently Cool, the only song off their second album to get an airing, just plain rocked.
The band left the stage, except Norman Falvo on keyboards and Andy Thompson and the pace slowed for Sign of Victory and Into the Fire, with Andy reinforcing just how powerful a vocalist he is. The band came rocking back for crowd favourite, Bad Dog (sounding slightly AC/DCish) and THE hit, Your So Vain. During this song they morphed it into 4 Non Blondes What’s Up, before reverting back to Your So Vain.
The encore was a surprise. Dave Gleeson from Screaming Jets joined the band for a version of Shivers. Totally unexpected. Totally magnificent. This was followed with a faithful rendition of INXS’s New Sensation and they nearly bought the roof down with a very loud hard rockin’ version of Sweet’s, Ballroom Blitz. I don’t know how the singer was still standing at this stage with the energy he put in to the performance. And then to show they are human, they went to the merch stand to sign autographs and talk to their fans.
Full credit to support band, South Australia’s own melodic/prog rock band Southern Empire who gave us 40 superb minutes of their own songs. They are off to the U.K and Europe soon and we wish them the best of luck.
A great night of high energy rock N roll.
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