ANDREW RAMADGE reports on the Chris Bailey and Ed Kuepper roadshow as it rolled into The Vanguard in Sydney on May 19. Photos by DANIEL BOUD.

The Vanguard is too small for Chris Bailey and Ed Kuepper. They make it feel cramped just by walking on stage and sitting down on wooden chairs. From up above, on the second storey, they look like naughty teenagers on detention. Bailey leans back and spreads his legs open while Kuepper curls forward as if there was a desk pushing into his stomach. A fitting image for two men who made their name in a band they formed in high school more than 30 years ago.

When M+N asked me to review the new collaborative show by the icons of The Saints – more than 12 months since I’d last written a live review, which was, coincidentally, of one of that same band’s reunion concerts – I wondered what they were playing at. Did they want me to go along just because I’m a bit of a prick? Because I’d sit there with an eagle-eye trained on the two famously estranged songwriters, trying to pry apart the fault lines and blow the slightest hint of hostility into a headline?

Probably.

I felt a bit bad about that, for a while. Then I remembered that last year Kuepper blew off an interview with me and told the publicist it was my fault. Game on.

Unfortunately for my editors – and the gossip columnist inside me – there aren’t any scandals at Bailey and Kuepper’s second show in Sydney. In fact it’s all so tame that when I think I see a girl and boy entering the same bathroom I consider interviewing them on the way out just to spice things up a bit.

The show goes like this: the two musicians walk on, sit down, a few guitars each by the side of their chairs, and they play a couple of country and blues covers as well as stripped back renditions of their own tracks. It goes for about an hour-and-a-half or more.

It’s nothing like a “best of” performance. I know more about Bailey and Kuepper than most. and half as much as their devotees, and I only recognise a few songs. Among them are ‘Car Headlights’ from Kuepper’s first solo album Electrical Storm and ‘The Way I Made You Feel’ from Honey Steel’s Gold, which is the highlight of the show.

They seem to have fun on stage, with Bailey leaning further and further back into his seat and spreading his legs further and further apart, until he’s slouching so hard it’s something of a mystery he doesn’t slide off completely.

Kuepper, who usually takes himself so seriously it hurts, seems to be in a good mood as well. When his voice gives out during a wonderful cover of The Kinks’ ‘Last Of The Steam Powered Trains’, he stops abruptly, coughs, laughs and says something that appears to be very witty because the audience laughs along too.

I can’t actually hear what it is Kuepper says though, because at this point I’m up the back, behind the dinner tables, where the woman standing next to me has taken to singing the songs herself because she can’t see or hear clearly. Her rendition of Bailey’s ‘In The Mirror’, from the first Saints album after Kuepper’s departure, is particularly impressive in volume. I think about asking her if she wants to ditch the gig and go to a karaoke bar.

And really, this whole being-up-the-back thing is the only problem of the night. The show is designed for those at the front – not just because they’re closer, but because it’s a sort of slow, meandering, sit-back-and-relax gig best enjoyed with a seat and a glass of red wine.

If you can scrape together 200 bucks to get a table for four, you’re going to enjoy it a whole lot more than if you’re standing upstairs or next to the bar. Not that it matters anyway, because the third show at The Vanguard is sold out.

“It’s been great having you, and I hope it’s been great having us too,” says Kuepper at the end of the night. “Feel free to—”
“Reciprocate,” says Bailey, finishing his sentence. Everyone laughs a bit and claps and then Kuepper jokingly blames the audience’s lack of enthusiasm for making his guitar go out of tune.

When it’s time for the encore, the people at the front bang their hands and glasses on the tables for more while a few at the back duck out.

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REVIEW: Bailey and Kuepper in Brisbane.

REVIEW: Bailey and Kuepper in Melbourne.