Martha Wainwright
The Gov
November 21

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It is more than three years since Martha Wainwright last played the Gov. She was supported by the excellent Josh Ritter and showcasing her self-titled first album, plus an adult concepts single, Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole, a musical arrow pitched plaintively at her famously absent father, Loudon Wainwright III. The family is a bit like that – hearts on their sleeves, lyrics dripping revenge and no stone unturned for the …

Robert Forster
Governor Hindmarsh
August 6.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

At the first show of a three week tour which was eventually to meander back to Sydney, Robert Forster is looking benign and bemused. It is a cold wet Wednesday, the open fire is banked high and the crowd at the Gov is sparse but keen. There is an air of rehearsal to this out of town try-out, Forster’s first gig since the release of his excellent new CD The …

Space Travel

Stephen Cummings

Liberation Music

Stephen Cummings has always been a bit of a space cadet, so his latest release Space Travel is just the sort of out-there quirky lyrical journey of the heart you’d want him to take. There is something heroic about Cummings’ persistence as an artist – novelist, songwriter, and power pop legend from The Sports – and with this album (astutely produced by Bill McDonald) he shows, with his fine-grained vocals and memorable tunes, that …

Bob Dylan
Adelaide Entertainment Centre
August 21

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

On his seventh time round, and his fourth since the Never-ending Tour began in 1989, Bob Dylan, the time lord, is back. Much has happened since we last saw him. First he published the first volume of his Chronicles, then there was the Scorsese documentary No Direction Home, including some of most extensive and candid interviews with Dylan ever seen. Things have changed, as he himself might say. After …

The Cure
Adelaide Entertainment Centre
August 6.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

With his back-combed black thatch, his scarlet lipstick and his dark drecky outfits, Robert Smith, founder and undisputed leader of The Cure, has been the Edward Scissorhands of pop music for the best part of thirty years. In that time he, and various permutations of his band, have produced more than twenty albums and an enviable list of boppy, instantly appealing singles. This has created two tiers of loyal …

Roger Waters
Entertainment Centre
February 7.

Eric Clapton
Entertainment Centre
February 9.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

It has been a busy time at the Entertainment Centre with two of the biggest names in British rock playing within two days of each other and The Scissor Sisters getting in for their snip as well. The word is that the current world tour is a victory lap for Roger Waters – victory, that is, over the other seventy five percent of Pink …

The Pretenders, with
Paul Kelly and the Boon Companions,
The Church, Josh Pyke.

A Day on the Green
Annie’s Lane Winery, Watervale.
January 20.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

While it was a welcome break to the South Australian drought and a boon to the state’s near North where it fell most heavily, the enormous hogshead of rain that unloaded on well-named Watervale, seemed sure to mean that A Day on the Green would be a night in the mire.

It …

Teddy Thompson
Governor Hindmarsh
November 29.

Reviewed by Murray Bramwell

I first came across Teddy Thompson on the I’m Your Man tribute concert album for Leonard Cohen – songs recorded in Brighton, England and at Brett Sheehy’s final Sydney Festival. Featured artists also included Nick Cave, Beth Orton, Jarvis Cocker, sisters Kate and Anna McGarrigle and Kate’s increasingly celebrated offspring, Martha and Rufus Wainwright.

Teddy Thompson had been around well before that, I discover – his first album released in …

2006

Adelaide Festival

Here Lies Love – A Song Cycle

Music by David Byrne and Fat Boy Slim

Ridley Centre, Royal Adelaide Showground

March 11. Tickets $59 – $20. Bookings BASS 131 246

Until March 14, 2006.

Murray Bramwell

By way of preface to Here Lies Love, David Byrne wonders how people can justify “their nastier behaviours to themselves” – but twenty four songs and a reprise later, we are still not any the wiser. Imelda Marcos is both an …

Jimmy Webb
8 September
Martha Wainwright, with Josh Ritter
9 September
Governor Hindmarsh

Murray Bramwell

We’ve had many good nights at the Gov – last week, two in a row. Songwriter Jimmy Webb is on his sixth visit but, this time, he is spruiking his first album of new material in a while. Dedicated, as he says, “to rebels, outcasts and unruly characters of all types,” Twilight of the Renegades begins with Paul Gauguin in Tahiti and veers outwards from …