@ The Gov
Tuesday 11 October 2022
Review by Jason Leigh
Photos by Geoff Jenke
Billed as the 32nd Anniversary Best of Tour and belatedly promoting their compilation A Head Full of Ideas, the Charlatans return to perform in the familiar environs of the Gov. Although mainstays Martin Blunt and Mark Collins on bass and guitar respectively along with later members Tony Rogers and Peter Salisbury on keys and drums have aged well, it is front man and singer Tim Burgess that has maintained a boyish charm. At one point he says that it is the third time they have played here and that they always look forward to it. Whether or not this was just polite hyperbole who can tell but Tim’s enthusiasm was undeniably genuine and this inspired the audience. There was a mutual affinity and Tim beamed at every opportunity while encouraging singing along and raising arms. It was as though he was a part of the audience when he commented, “The only thing missing from that song is maracas”, after Then, which on the night sounded like an early run through of The Only One I Know played later.
Unlike their last appearance in Adelaide in 2018 when half of the set was songs from their last couple of albums, these albums were somewhat overlooked on this occasion in preference for early material although that is not a criticism. In fact, the middle of their set included a selection of songs that displayed a range beyond the usual lazy, simplistic description of their music as baggy or dance-pop. For You’re So Pretty – We’re So Pretty Tim employed an almost spoken vocal over an infectious hypnotic back beat and mimicked and shared his microphone with Mark Collins’ outro guitar solo. The bar room honky tonk of Sleeping Little Sunshine Boy was followed by the funky piano of Just When You’re Thinkin’ Things Over. The rock and roll grooves of One to Another drove the significantly British expat crowd into a frenzy. This would have made for a great set closer before an encore but the set was far from over and continued with the contrasting country slide of A Man Needs to Be Told and the funky syncopation of Tremelo Song.
The last third of the set included late career highlight Plastic Machinery as well as early favourite The Only One I Know which sounded retro on release in 1990 and most certainly now. The band returned for an encore that ended appropriately with Sproston Green, transformed in the live setting into the Charlatans’ own, more upbeat The End (The Doors not the Beatles).
Given their inventiveness and creativity over the years as displayed in the songs performed on this stopgap greatest hits tour, I hope that the band continue on their current path as an ongoing concern, although there has been no new material since 2017, and do not lapse into a retro act that the Charlatans name might potentially imply.
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