RENÉ SCHAEFER reports on the final night of Chris Bailey and Ed Kuepper’s residency at the Bennetts Lane Jazz Club in Melbourne on May 30. The show was the culmination of a month-long tri-state stint that saw performances in Brisbane and Sydney. Photos by ROBERT CARBONE.

If it seems indulgent to run three reviews of what is essentially the same show, only staged in different cities, spare a thought for the writer who has to cover the last night. Personally, I’ve never been particularly interested in the supposed feud between these two musicians, which dates back to Ed Kuepper’s acrimonious split from The Saints in the late 1970s. This mythical conflict boils down to nothing more than a difference in temperaments, which extends to the role each man adopts in performance: Bailey is the entertainer par excellence, while Kuepper sees himself as an artist, expressing deeper truths through his music.

Like light and shade, the two complement each other, and together they once managed to create a body of work that has attained classic status among critics and fans. While many people prefer one or the other’s output post-separation, it was exciting to witness these two legendary performers feeding off each other on stage once again.

Looking around the sold-out Bennetts Lane Jazz Club, there was a lot of greying hair and middle-age spread. Bailey and Kuepper didn’t make the mortgaged ex-punks wait too long before ambling out of their dressing room and taking their place among an array of guitars and lyric sheets.

Keeping banter to a minimum, they launched into a fine rendition of Bob Dylan’s ‘Ballad Of Hollis Brown’. The relaxed setting suited Bailey’s voice. Pleasingly, he still retains some of the snarl and spit of early Saints, but as the set unfolded, it was obvious that his forte lies in the timbre and phrasing of old school folk blues. Apart from a requisite reading of ‘Just Like Fire Would’, the rest of his repertoire remained in the blues idiom – from a re-interpretation of Prodigal Son’s ‘Massacre’ to later solo gems like ‘Road To Oblivion’.

Coming at the end of their stint on the road together, the two men seemed perfectly at ease with each other, any potential tensions having long since evaporated. The set was pretty much identical to the ones played in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne over the last few weekends, but nobody was complaining. As expected, they refused to delve into the first three Saints albums and, to a lot of fans’ regret, there were no Laughing Clowns numbers either.

Nevertheless, this was a great opportunity to witness Kuepper’s mastery of the electric guitar, as he whipped up his trademark electrical storm. More than ably backed by Bailey’s fluid bass lines on the majority of his songs, Kuepper demonstrated just how inventive a musician he is. ‘Messin Pt. 2’ was beautifully understated, highlighting the simplicity of the ancient blues riff, but replacing its original swagger with a lyric redolent with melancholy and doubt.

On Bailey’s tracks, he kept his playing tastefully concise, emphasising some notes and omitting others altogether, to create a sense of restrained drama. When Kuepper took short solos, they bristled with nervous energy, as his fingers effortlessly slid up and down the fretboard. ‘Car Headlights’ was a stand-out moment, as was ‘The Way You Made Me Feel’, which was buoyed by Bailey’s insistent bass notes and sympathetic harmony vocal.

Being suitably warmed up, The Kinks’ ‘Last Of The Steam Powered Trains’ involved some hilarious audience participation, as the duo invited one half of the crowd to clap their hands and the other to stamp their feet on the off-beat. Results were predictably ramshackle. Further comic relief came in the form of the hapless mixer and guitar tech who, having been summoned on stage, interpreted this as his chance to participate in the stomping, only to be promptly cut down by Kuepper, who proffered his guitar for re-tuning.

The set concluded with Bailey’s strangely affecting interpretation of Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Send In The Clowns’.His dignified delivery of this potentially hokey showtune emphasised its original intention as a lament for ageing show business hacks past their prime.

An unusually long respite in the dressing room, despite a prolonged ovation from the crowd, signalled that something special was in the works for the finale of this tour. Of all the songs Bailey and Kuepper could have chosen for their encore, the one we got was probably the most unlikely. Melanie Safka’s sappy post-Woodstock hippie anthem ‘Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)’ was transformed into a ripsnorting singalong, with backing vocals provided by The Spazzys.

It appeared like neither the performers nor the crowd really wanted the song to end, and it went through several permutations and reprises, before winding up with a final a capella chorus by the ladies. The onstage bonhomie was infectious, and as people filed out into the night, there were no regrets at set-list omissions or lack of on-stage fisticuffs. It was never possible to please everyone, but it was patently obvious that these two Saints had had a ball playing together.

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REVIEW: Bailey and Kuepper in Brisbane.

REVIEW: Bailey and Kuepper in Sydney.