Thursday 9 May 2013
Where
ever we’ve been, we’re back! Schnitzel and the Moose, large as ever. Let’s kick
our triumphant return to the blogosphere off with a review of last night’s Bob
Evans concert. We’re going to try something a little different this time, with
each of use turning in our own take on the evening and then sticking them
together end on end. Let us know what you think!
SCHNITZEL:
Yesterday
was a shitty day. Work was long and arduous, it took ages to get a taxi home,
my daughter wasn't keen on eating her dinner and my last minute organising had
left Mrs Schnitzel in somewhat of a frazzled state. Shitty, shitty, SHITTY.
The
day was quickly retconned, through, through an intensive process of pre-concert
dinner and drinks (at Raj's Corner and the Terrace Bar, respectively); more
drinks at the Cambridge Hotel and a good set from support act Tiger Town.
Excellent. By the time Bob Evans came on stage, I was very merry indeed. By the end of the night, all the shitty was gone and all that remained was some of
my favourite tunes, beers, whole-of-crowd sing-alongs, a swooning wife and an autographed
tea towel.
Bob
played to a room of around 100 people (which I quite enjoyed because it made
the whole night quite intimate, but really, Newcastle; get your shit together!)
and ran through a bunch of tunes in a Suburban
Songbook heavy set list. Each of his albums were represented, and he was
bang on with his guitar playing, his voice (note perfect) and his good natured
jibes towards the people sitting outside having a ciggie and bad mouthing him
on Twitter (#bobevansisarudecunt). Playing sans the band; Bob owned the stage,
looked and sounded like he was having a great time and put out a full, rich
sound… all the while posing for photos and swigging from a bottle of authentic
Hunter Valley red wine.
There
were many highlights for me: ‘Sadness and whiskey’ (which is totally why I drank so much whisky at
the Terrace Bar before the show), ‘Me and my friend’, ‘Brother, O brother’,
‘Pasha Bulker’, ‘Go’, ‘Sitting in the waiting room’, his opening cover of the
Divinyl’s ‘I touch myself’ and his I’m-going-to-walk-through-the-crowd-before-standing-right-next-to-you-to-sing
rendition of ‘Don’t you think it’s time’. It was a top night and a top
performance. And as far as slow burn birthday presents go, Mrs Schnitzel was
very damn happy.
4/5
MOOSE:
My
day was considerably different! I work in radio, and due to a reshuffle of the
‘drive’ program I ended up with the opportunity to interview the man himself.
The chat was great, we recorded some IDs for an upcoming album feature we will
be doing and it couldn’t have gone better. I edited it all up then met
Schnitzel for dinner.
Dinner
and drinks later and I had a large group of people I love that had turned out
to see the show, and it was a great gig. Again due to some sort of reshuffle,
Bob played a solo set. As Schnitzel said, it was heavy on Suburban Songbook and full of lovely little moments. My favourite
of which came during requests – ‘For today’, the opener to his first record
(2003’s Suburban Kid), as well as ‘Wonderful
you’, an incredibly sweet song.
It’s
just good to see someone give it their all, and play with a lot of honesty and
passion while making such a full sound all on their own. It just proved what a
great performer and genuinely nice guy Kevin Mitchell is, and seems to have
been all along.
