Review: Gareth Liddiard @ Brisbane Festival Spiegeltent
I’m thoroughly enjoying this early evening show business that Brisbane Festival has been organising. The Cooper’s 7pm Shows have been nothing short of enthralling, and tonight’s show is looking like being something very similar, with the Drones’ frontman Gareth Liddiard wooing the crowd with a solo acoustic set.
It was a little disappointing to see that the crowd was slightly smaller in comparison to other evenings, but nonetheless they were silently awaiting every ounce of outburst that has become a regular occurrence of Liddiard’s enormous personality. Watching him drink a suspiciously spirit-looking liquid from a water bottle, Liddiard discussed how he was excited to be back on the show wagon after having a break, as lately he’s been building a pizza oven rather than playing music… this is a tough life he must lead.
Starting the set off with a number of tracks from his solo album, Strange Tourist, including the title track, Highplains Mailman, and Blondin Makes and Omelette, Liddiard then moved into favourite tracks from his numerous Drones albums, including Sixteen Straws, I Don’t Ever Want To Change, and the always beautiful Jezebel.
The one thing that really stood out to me watching Liddiard on stage this evening was the crowd. As aforementioned, it was not as populated as it should be, but even so, that wouldn’t have been an issue if they weren’t so polite. The one thing that Liddiard seems to feed upon whilst on stage is a bit of crowd banter, which, other than a crazed woman in the front row who went from hysterical tears to hysterical laughter in a matter of seconds (I don’t know what she was on, but it was certainly working, although I don’t want any?!), there wasn’t all that much heckling/chat/banter at all, which was refreshing, but also a little awkward.
Nonetheless, Gareth’s voice was haunting and blunt, his songs atmospheric and dramatic. Fantastic show by one of Australia’s best.