Review: The Gin Club @ the Zoo
Words: Josh Bush
Saturday 18 June
Without a new album or shiny ware to spruik, and with little reason to be on the road save for being a musical troupe doing what a musical troupe love to do, The Gin Club return to The Zoo tonight looking to play from all corners of their 7 year back catalogue.
Foregoing set lists and rehearsals for this tour, “Gone” and “Already Gone” (“because we’ve already played gone”) open the evenings proceedings and, like your favourite sloppy joe, this rag tag bunch have slipped straight over your shoulders. Conor Macdonald, purveyor of some of the saddest songs to come out of Brisbane, follows with his heartbreaking lament “I Am My Own Partner”, silencing all on the wooden floorboards tonight.
There seems to be a lack of energy coming from the stage early in the set however, and one wonders if this may have something to do with the collective’s level of sobriety – an ailment soon to be cured by the tray of tequila shots kindly making it’s way to the front.
From this point, a shift in mood and tempo is noted, with “An Horse” bouncing and bubbling along with a greater kick than on record – yep, The Gin Club have arrived. Ben Salter delivers a one-two punch with a reverb soaked “Eternity” morphing it’s way into a breathtaking rendition of “You, Me And The Sea”. Salter’s vocal talents shine at this moment and he shows why he demands to be regarded as one of this country’s greatest singers.
Originally an 11 member collective, tonight’s 6 piece Gin Club swells by 2 when Brad Pickersgill and Dale Peachey, former members and current associates oft separated by time and distance, enter stage right for an a capella take of the rousing ode to treacherous women, “Wylde Bitch”. Pickersgill then takes charge and transports us (well, this reviewer anyway) back to the heady days at one of Brisbane’s former venues The Rev with “Campus Blues”, a rendition that is something of a treat for those in attendance.
Beers, jokes, tales of being on the road bereft of shoes in Adelaide and a JBT jam flow throughout the rest of the show, culminating with a cracking delivery of the best song The Lemonheads never wrote, “Drug Flowers”.
Exiting down the stairs of the The Zoo to the strains of Joey Scarbury’s “Believe It Or Not” with a download code for a collection of B-sides from Brisbane’s greatest roustabouts tucked in my back pocket, I can’t help but think of George Costanza’a answering machine and that warm feeling that you know you’ll never want to offload that sloppy joe.