The Church only comes around so often. Even pre-pandemic, the Australian band did not tour the U.S. with great regularity. They put out records all the time, but tours tended to be short and sweet. I last saw them in 2015, when they toured on a reissue of their second album, The Blurred Crusade, and played a blistering two-set show in Nashville.
For March 2023, they came to a mostly full Gothic Theatre in Denver suburb Englewood with a new record – The Hypnogogue – and 40 years of songs to choose from. Their 80s-centered sound brings in elements of New Wave, dream pop and harder-edged rock on newer songs.
We know what decade produced The Church, but they keep evolving, even on album No. 26. Singer/bassist Steve Kilbey might be the last original member of The Church, but he assembled a tight band. Guitarists Ian Haug and Ashley Naylor provided plenty of nimble spectacle on either side of Kilbey (longtime guitarist Peter Koppes left the band in 2019). Multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Cain alternating between guitar and keyboards. Longtime drummer Tim Powles ran into visa issues and could not join the tour, but his replacement did fine.
At one point all three guitarists picked up 12- string guitars for Old Coast Road, with Kilbey reminded the audience, “That’s 36 strings. That’s great value for your money.”
The Church touched on eight albums aside from the Hypnogogue, with four tracks from Starfish, their best-seller in the states. Their better-known albums received a track or more. I will never complain about hearing Columbus from Heyday, and the band delivered that early in the night.
We must talk about Steve Kilbey’s voice. By show’s end, he clearly showed impact from the altitude (while never asking the audience about it, like singers do). I suspect that at sea level, he would have sounded better. His voice also suffered from an audio mix that at times left him too far out front or muffled among the instruments. But I can’t fault the band for that – they were a crack operation, same as in 2015.
Kilbey stayed in storytelling mode all night. He had to introduce the songs from the Hypnogogue, a sci-fi concept album about a machine that can pull songs from people’s dreams. For each of the seven songs from the Hypnogogue, Kilbey set the scene with an introduction, a story that would not be apparent from just listening to the record.
Rather than play them together, The Church sprinkled the Hypnogogue tunes through the set, which seemed a better choice since the songs might have been overwhelming if played consecutively. Plus, this crowd wanted the band’s career highlights as well.
I barely remembered any banter last time, but Kilbey talked at length. At first I thought he might be drunk.
But Kilbey just had stories he wanted to tell. He pointed out that the band almost didn’t make Denver, since a truck sideswiped their tour bus during the night driving across Wyoming. He went on a what-if tangent about the bus crashing, seeing Jesus and explaining the need to play the Denver show, at which Jesus rewound time and let The Church get away with the truck taking a chunk out of the bus.
The Church’s best-known song in the U.S. received introduction by way of Kilbey mentioning it appeared in Miami Vice during a auto chase scene. He voice sounded a little off on Under the Milky Way, the most anticipated song in the set. But it felt more like he was adjusting to the altitude than stumbling through it.
We left during the last song, as two-plus hours of song and extended banter let Kilby’s voice visibly gassed. He complained about a cut on his finger that inhibited his bass playing, but said he could not just take the day off, and said playing music beat real work any day.
There has to be something to that for a band like The Church. Touring the U.S. in short intervals (21 cities in six weeks) seems to keep them fresh. Their energy never flagged in those two-plus hours. After the 2015 show, I reminded myself not to miss them if they toured again. After the Denver, that pledge stays the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment