The Gov
Friday 25th November 2022
Review: John Glennie
Photos: Robert McArthur
After a three year hiatus, Pseudo Echo returned to The Gov as part of an epic national tour to coincide with the release of the “Ultimate” double album & DVD, chronicling their expansive forty year music career.
With no support act, the enthusiastic crowd were treated to nearly 2 hours of non-stop classic, great music from an Aussie icon. With just the drummer and keyboardist on stage to set the tone with awesome beats and familiar electro sounds, the stage soon filled with the remaining four members launching into half a dozen tracks from their first album – 1984’s Autumnal Park starting with Stranger In Me closely followed by His Eyes, See Through and Destination Unknown. The crowd really got into the infectious rhythm of A Beat For You then had time for a bit of a breather with the slower Dancing Until Midnight – though they seemed pretty keen to do just that!
We then moved to 1985 and the Love An Adventure album and drum (Cameron Smith)/synthesizer (James Mund) intro to I Ask You Why followed by I Will Be You with the crowd joining in the chorus “I will be you, you will be me, we’ll be each other …” and the keytar (Matty Ray) featuring prominently. After the album’s title track, the crowd were jumping to Living In A Dream.
Founding member and frontman Brian Canham certainly hasn’t lost anything over the 40+ year career. Though sometimes the sound mix wasn’t the best with his voice being a but distorted on many occasions.
After a couple of tracks from the 1988 album Race with Take On The World and Fooled Again we were treated to a couple of sensational covers. For the first one, Brian told us how it was a defining track in his music career and, since he said he couldn’t match the sensational female vocals of the original he did a damn good version of Nutbush City Limits – with many of the crowd doing the signature dance moves. Their cover of Real Life’s Send Me An Angel was brilliant with the crowd joining in for most of the lyrics.
By now the crowd were eagerly anticipating the final must-do tracks and Brian told us how, early in their career, they had gone around sticking fliers for an upcoming gig on cars – hoping to get more than the usual 100-odd people. The venue was packed and Brian noticed some guy in a cowboy hat in the crowd. It turned out to be Molly Meldrum and he invited them onto Countdown! Normally the criteria was an album contract, which they didn’t have – but Milly broke the rules, and the rest is history. The band then launched into the much anticipated Listening then an extended version of their legendary cover of Lipps Inc’s Funky Town. It looked like it was all over when the backup singer left the stage followed by the three guitarists imitating Amgus Young’s dance move to the guitar riff of Dirty Deeds. We were then left the way it all started, with just the drums and keyboards – but, lo and behold, the other members came back on stage and launched into Deep Purple’s Black Night then morphing back into Funky Town!
The band left the stage briefly before returning for a one-song encore with the title track from their 2014 Ultraviolet album. Overall it was a great night of classic Aussie music from a legendary Aussie band – let’s hope they come back soon!
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