West Thebarton – The Gov Saturday 30 June 2018.
Words Geoff Jenke
According to Triple j “You just have to see this band live”. On Saturday night, Adelaide turned out in force to see local band, West Thebarton, selling out The Gov well before the event date.
Formerly known as West Thebarton Brothel Party, the band dropped the last two words prior to releasing their sensational debut album, Different Beings Being Different.
With seven members on stage, it doesn’t leave a lot of room for the charismatic lead singer, Reverend Ray, to bounce around, revving up the crowd, but somehow, he found the room. As the band launched into the opening number, Anatomy, the crowd surfers launched themselves above the crowd. Stuck on You followed and the audience in front of the stage became a huge writhing mass.
The band dug back to their early days, if you can call 3 years ago early, with the songs Red or White and Billions with Reverend Ray playing guitar. There were 5 people playing guitar at any one time… heaven.
The anthem, Bible Camp, raised the level of excitement to a whole new level with the audience singing along to “And I’ll paint the sky blue for you”. A couple more older ones including Glenn McGrath from their debut E.P. The Rev did comment after a few of the older songs that this would be the last time they will play them. A sign of a band moving forward and upward.
A run of songs from the new album finished the set. On the Hill, Set It Straight, Do You Believe and Gough (with The Reverend quoting the lines “God save the Queen, because nothing will save the Governor General” at the start of the song) steamrolled through the crowd.
At one stage towards the end, The Reverend Ray asked everyone in The Gov to kneel on the floor and everyone did. A sight to behold with the Ray “preaching” to us all.
There was only one song left for the final number, Moving Out. It was an apocalyptic climax. There was no encore. You couldn’t follow this despite the audience yelling “one more song” for a solid 5 minutes after the end of the final song.
West Thebarton are on the rise. Another South Australian band we should be proud of. You can call it Pub Rock, Bogan Rock or Punk Rock, but the single fact remains, West Thebarton ROCK. You just have to see this band live.
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