Augie March

Seated (for a change) in the ever-splendid Forum Theatre, I’m struggling to enjoy the nasally, pained delivery of Gareth Liddiard’s vocal without the full backing of The Drones. Dan Luscombe is there too, but their set is overall dark, messy and, at times, horribly grating. Not to take away from their songwriting or committed performance, but it’s all a bit confronting without the other half of this great band to even out the ferociousness.

Not unlike those people who love tomatoes and hate tomato sauce, I feel a bit disloyal in my ambivalence. Not so the growing audience who seem to have no issue drinking and talking at rude levels throughout the duo’s set. I toy with the idea of sticking my fingers in my ears so I can transcend time and remember the A1 excitement of seeing The Drones rock the Supernatural Amphitheatre at Golden Plains.

As the crowd builds, Liddiard and Luscombe depart making way for Augie March. The lights go down; the scene changes markedly. All faces are pointed toward the stage. Blue lights shine down – seemingly from a hovering, unseen spacecraft – and the besuited band are ushered on (literally, torch and all) to a warm splattering of applause. Someone gives the smoke machine a kick and away we go.

Augie March have been floating in the back of my triple j-reared mind for as long as they’ve been around, and I have stumbled upon them on the odd (drunken) occasion as well. Tonight, I settle in to be stunned by the gentle introduction of ‘The Hole In Your Roof’ and feel a pang of sadness that they’re packing it in indefinitely. Mind you, if reports are true and Glenn Richards is going to write film scores, among other things, the Australian film industry must be beside itself. Richards – indie rock’s equivalent of the grumpy old man – really is amazing. He swings around constantly to address his fellow bandmates, and his witty interaction with drummer Dave Williams provides regular comic relief: “Dead set, mate. Fuckin’ bang on that!”

It’s a special occasion and so the horns are rolled out, not to mention piano accordion and other bells and (tin) whistles. But even without the orchestral flourishes, these five fellows – Richards, Williams, bassist Edmond Ammendola, guitarist Adam Donovan and keyboardist Kiernan Box – create an incredible wall of sound. Box’s Split Enz-y keys delight me early and his switch to pennywhistle for the track, er, ‘Pennywhistle’ is gorgeous alongside jubilant horns and a driving rhythm section.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue: there is so much musical history tied up in every arrangement – from vaudeville to folk to sea shanties – that the word “song” falls short in my notebook. I feel like donning an evening gown and smoking a cigarette through an ebony holder when the soft-shoe brushes and cigar-bar keys jaunt quietly into ‘The Keepa’. (Augie March even make cricket references sound timeless.)

As the show comes to a close, Richards wryly references the years spent slogging it away with his bandmates in the “most wonderful and traditional way, which is killing yourself”, before apologising by announcing two planned encores. “We’ve got time to make up for that shithouse speech,” he jokes.

It’s heavy going stuff; a two-and-a-half hour, two-encore set featuring a misty-eyed ‘There’s No Such Place’, ‘This Train Will Be Taking No Passengers’ and ‘One Crowded Hour’, their only genuine hit, which I’m sure they felt compelled to close with. Not that it was a surprise, really, but for all the exasperation Richards exudes when haunted by that song, it seems a fair payment to those people who came late to the party. Like myself, for example, who will now use Augie March’s planned hiatus to better acquaint myself with their back catalogue.

Glorious stuff.

by Melanie Lewis